Moving at the Speed of Trust to Help Communities Deploy Microgrids

Go slow, engage community stakeholders and take the time to perform a feasibility study when working to deploy community microgrids, especially in tribal and disadvantaged communities.

That was the message from four resilience experts during a December teleconference organized by Mayfield Renewables, “Community Considerations for Microgrid Enablement.”

It’s important to avoid going into a community and saying, “We’re going to bring you a pile of money,” said Lindsey Bear, project manager at Spark Northwest, which works with immigrant, low-wealth, rural and indigenous communities to develop local energy projects. That will create skepticism and distrust, she added.

“Moving at the speed of trust is knowing that each community is going to be different and requires a different process,” she said.

The importance of listening to community members

To build this trust, microgrid developers should begin by listening to and understanding perspectives from those who live and work there, said Markus Virta, managing partner at Cascadia Renewables, which focuses on building community-level resilience.

Developers need to do their homework, he said. That means reading the community’s emergency management plan, the local utility’s integrated resource plan or learning about how the region is growing. Reading such public plans gives developers a context to begin a conversation.

Developers, designers and equipment providers should read emergency management plans, which are public documents, front to back, he said.

How developers can learn about emergency support in communities

“What I've always found is really useful is looking at the emergency support functions list inside of that plan, which is a way that emergency managers start to organize how they respond in an emergency and who is taking the lead in the responses,” Virta said.

This provides the context he needs to decide how he can contribute to a community with his skill set. The plan will identify climate hazards and the local community’s strategy for addressing them.

“If you show up in a community having read those documents, that is really helpful in how you start to engage and start to ask questions and start to listen,” he said.

Listening also means understanding what resilience means to a community.

Kate Pedersen, energy resilience specialist at the Washington State Department of Commerce, said that it’s critical to understand the purpose of a community microgrid. A community asset deployed on a building is a very different project than a utility-scale microgrid or a battery energy storage project that provides load balancing.

“Is it for economic reasons or is it for resiliency reasons?” asked Pederson, a trained emergency manager. Once developers understand the purpose, they should focus carefully on those goals, she said.

And communities across the U.S. are different, she added. A community center in Florida is very different from one in Kansas. The environmental issues differ, and so do the hazards.

How to avoid deploying microgrids in risk zones

When looking for background information, developers and designers should start with local plans from cities or counties, she said. Every state has a state-level plan, but counties often have them, too.

In addition, they should look for hazard mitigation plans. It’s a bad idea to make an expensive investment in a microgrid and site it in a flood or wildfire risk zone. Be sure to focus on deploying microgrids where disasters won’t damage them.                     

Asking questions is critical. Developers and designers shouldn’t assume they know a community’s needs. They should ask where community members feel comfortable going during a disaster. It’s not always where experts tell them to go.

“Try to really understand what people do when the world goes sideways so that you can help uplift that infrastructure versus where you want the infrastructure to go,” Pedersen said.

How to connect with community leaders

Developers can visit resource fairs, energy fairs, community dinners and other events to identify potential partners who are trusted in the community.  It’s also a good idea to talk to local utilities.

Any microgrid project should include operations and maintenance planning that includes the microgrid resources, Bear said. During one of her microgrid projects, the facility manager retired and the person who replaced him didn’t understand what functions the battery provided.

Community microgrid projects should include feasibility studies that serve as technoeconomic and community engagement roadmaps for projects–even if they’re time-consuming and costly, Virta said.

“Doing a feasibility study on the front end allows you to slow down and listen to the community, anticipate barriers, and think through them with the community,” he said. “Is this worth it? Is it the right technology fit?”

Some microgrid seekers only need generators

Finding the right technology fit is critical, Pedersen said. She worked with a general store in a rural area that was the only gas and food provider. The store wanted reliable electricity backup so people could get food and pump gas during outages. A microgrid would have cost more than $500,000 to back up the building, when the store really needed a $30,000 generator, she said.

“We can’t go in like, ‘We’re going to put in a microgrid. We have to come in like, ‘We’re going to find a solution,’” she said.

With a feasibility study–which should always be done early–developers and equipment providers should focus equally on economic, technical and community details to identify the financial, technical and life-saving benefits of a project, Virta said.

That type of approach will reap big rewards, he added.

“I learn every single time I work on a microgrid in a community,” he said. “If I do that work and engage the stakeholders, I end up feeling like there’s nothing more impactful I could do in these communities and there’s this massive satisfaction doing really meaningful work for people who deserve it.

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