Have a column up at Sustainable Oregon part of the Portland Business Journal talking about microgrids/
Importing power via the centralized grid network means exporting dollars out of the local economy. The World Alliance for Decentralized Energy estimates the capital costs per megawatt to be as much as 44 percent less than centralized generation resulting in 15 percent lower cost to the consumer in the United States because, “distributed energy technologies are highly flexible and adaptable to local circumstances, allowing for more efficient local electricity generation.”
Communities, industrial parks and real estate developers can afford to enter the energy production business on the microgrid scale. Municipalities are also getting in on the game: The City of Corvallis Waste Water Reclamation Plant and the Sonoma County Water Agency in California are both implementing on-site renewable energy power generation.
Read the whole thing here
