This article by Alex Brown was originally published in the Oregon Capital Chronicle.
Oregon lawmakers have passed a pair of bills to enable “microgrids” within a large power system.
Microgrids are essentially local “islands” of energy generation and storage systems, connecting to utilities, but can operate independently if necessary. Many are designed to serve community facilities such as hospitals and schools in emergencies.
California passed its own microgrid policy in 2018, but Oregon supporters say the new law is the most ambitious in the country.
If the utility needs to shut off the power lines during periods of high-risk wildfire risk, community microgrids can use a combination of local solar and battery storage to keep their main facilities online, even if they are blocked from the main grid.
The Oregon bill pair has been passed by a massive, bipartisan majority, awaiting the expected signature of Democratic government Tina Kotek.
One of the bills orders the Oregon Utilities Commission to create a regulatory framework for private and community-owned microgrids. It also orders regulators to establish rules for buildings to connect to microgrids. Under this measure, local governments can establish “microgrid zones” with their own land use regulations.
Oregon Rep. Mark Gamba, a Democrat who serves as vice-chairman of the House Climate, Energy and Environment Committee, said the state needs further changes to land use to speed up the permits for energy projects. Microgrid laws “cut off a bit of the deficit,” he said.
“This means that we’ll fix the permit system with every stretch, not every endoll, but this was something we could pass this year,” Gamba said in an interview.
Another bill allows utility or third-party consultants to evaluate requests to connect microgrids to public power grids. Proponents say it will help ease the bottlenecks of regulations that delay clean energy projects, Trade Publishing Utility Dive reported.
Dylan Kruse, president of Oregon-based nonprofit Sustainable Northwest, told Utility Dive that rural communities are particularly susceptible to power reliability issues.
Some utilities opposed the law, Oregon’s public broadcast reported, saying it could be dangerous to allow third parties to connect to the utility infrastructure. They cited their work to establish a microgrid with their partners.
Kruse told OPB that wildfires, heat waves and snowstorms are creating urgency to make the grid more resilient.
“We see challenges in the grid,” he said. “It’s affecting the community, and we’re looking for a lot of these outages and looking for an alternative that says, ‘Look, if the lights go off, here’s a few options.’ ”
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