MicrogridKnowledge.com Releases Guide on Community Microgrids for Mayors and City Leaders

June 17, 2015
MicrogridKnowledge.com today released a guide to assist mayors and city leaders who are exploring community microgrids as a way to gain more local control over their energy supply.
MicrogridKnowledge.com today released a guide to assist mayors and other city leaders who are exploring community microgrids as a way to gain more local control over their energy supply.

The 18-page report, “Community Microgrids: A Guide for Mayors and City Leaders Seeking Clean, Reliable and Locally Controlled Energy,” provides big-picture insight into the community microgrid trend, as well as specific advice to help municipalities that are considering microgrid development.

“We are seeing heightened interest by cities and towns in microgrids to protect their critical services — like police, fire and health care — during power outages,” said Elisa Wood, chief editor of MicrogridKnowledge.com. “Municipalities also are pursuing microgrids to make their electric and thermal energy more efficient and green.”

She added: “While interest is strong in community microgrids, little information exists to help mayors and leaders who are just getting started. This guide is designed to do just that.”

Written in accessible prose, the guide profiles several cities and towns that operate microgrids or have them in planning. Its six chapters also explore the evolution of the contemporary microgrid and look at both immediate and future benefits, steps to get started, financing, incentives and microgrid revenue potential.

A modern microgrid is a small-scale power grid that often integrates efficient and clean electricity and heat, energy storage and smart grid technologies. It can operate independently or in conjunction with the area’s main electrical grid and can provide back-up power, services or support to the main grid during heavy demand periods.

“Community Microgrids: A Guide for Mayors and City Leaders Seeking Clean, Reliable and Locally Controlled Energy” is available for free download at MicrogridKnowledge.com and EnergyEfficiencyMarkets.com.

The guide is sponsored by the International District Energy Association and OBG.

MicrogridKnowledge.com is the first independent, international news and feature website dedicated solely to the microgrid market — an industry expected to be worth as much as $40 billion by 2020, according to Navigant Research.

EnergyEfficiencyMarkets.com is a business-to-business news and feature website that focuses on disruptive energy technologies and the efficiencies they bring to businesses and consumers in North America.

For more information, contact Kevin Normandeau at [email protected]

About the Author

Elisa Wood | Editor-in-Chief

Elisa Wood is an award-winning writer and editor who specializes in the energy industry. She is chief editor and co-founder of Microgrid Knowledge and serves as co-host of the publication’s popular conference series. She also co-founded RealEnergyWriters.com, where she continues to lead a team of energy writers who produce content for energy companies and advocacy organizations.

She has been writing about energy for more than two decades and is published widely. Her work can be found in prominent energy business journals as well as mainstream publications. She has been quoted by NPR, the Wall Street Journal and other notable media outlets.

“For an especially readable voice in the industry, the most consistent interpreter across these years has been the energy journalist Elisa Wood, whose Microgrid Knowledge (and conference) has aggregated more stories better than any other feed of its time,” wrote Malcolm McCullough, in the book, Downtime on the Microgrid, published by MIT Press in 2020.

Twitter: @ElisaWood

LinkedIn: Elisa Wood

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