Creating the next generation of industry experts

One of the northernmost parts of the continental U.S., Orcas Island is roughly three hours (by car and ferry) from downtown Seattle and is connected to the mainland by a single undersea transmission line. Extreme weather events and grid outages can leave locals stranded for extended periods of time. To protect their uniquely vulnerable infrastructure, the San Juan County Emergency Management (SJCEM) agency identified the Orcas Center as a facility that could function as a resiliency hub in an emergency. The location was conveniently central and well known community gathering place. The issue, however, was that the Orcas Center did not have the energy resources required to function as an island-able microgrid system. With a site (Orcas Center) and primary goal (energy resilience) in mind, SJCEM set out to find the right mix of distributed energy resources to achieve key performance benchmarks while staying within space and budgetary constraints. In other words, this island facility was interested in “islanding” from the grid.

The commercial and industrial (C&I) renewable energy sector is experiencing a paradox. Driven by data center load growth, grid capacity constraints, and community resilience targets, the demand for distributed energy resources (DERs) is at the front end of a significant upward trajectory. Yet, the C&I mid-market lacks a widely accepted industry playbook to develop these […]

Introduction Understanding what Owner's Engineering is only answers half the question. The harder part for a system owner is knowing exactly when to bring that expertise into a project. Renewable energy assets are built to perform for 25 to 30 years, and the decisions made in the first few months of a project can lock […]