The United States continues to lead the global microgrid market, according to the fourth quarter 2015 Microgrid Deployment Tracker released by Navigant Research.
In all, the research firm identified 1,437 microgrids worldwide, totaling 13 GW in 100 countries.
Of that, the U.S. leads the microgrid market with 673 projects or 4,800 MW, according to Peter Asmus, report author. Alaska remains the number one state with 900 MW of microgrid capacity, followed by New York with 151 MW.
The tracker identified 83 new projects in New York, the result of its $40 million NY Prize, an incentive program that has launched the state as a microgrid leader.
“Although the vast majority of these projects do not yet have an assigned capacity—pending the results of feasibility studies—this list of potential projects in a single U.S. state speaks to the growing interest in community resilience microgrids that are connected to a traditional utility distribution grid,” Asmus said.
Even though North America dominates the market, microgrids are truly a global phenomenon, according to the tracker.
In terms of microgrid capacity, Asia Pacific is tied with North America, with 42 percent. Meanwhile, the European microgrid market showed the largest increase in capacity since the last quarterly update with 869.1 MW. Of that 816 MW of projects are near the Arctic Cicle in the far East of Russia. All of the new Arctic projects include renewables, according to Asmus.
In all, the update identified over 1,369.3 MW of new global microgrid capacity, including previously unreported microgrids and new projects that have gone into development or operation.
ABB leads the microgrid market in terms of identified capacity with 391 MW; Schneider Electric leads in terms of total number of projects, 51, according to the tracker.
Remote microgrids continue to dominate the market, representing over half of the market tracked globally.
The latest update, Navigant’s ninth tracker, includes the following new features:
- Market capacity breakdowns by distributed generation and energy storage (DG) type
- Market breakdowns by capacity and project number by Top 10 countries and Top 10 U.S. states
- Market breakdowns by capacity and project number by microgrid vendors
An executive summary available for free download is here.
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