Grid Systems: Microgrids

The Office of Electricity (OE) supports critical grid systems research to strengthen grid reliability and resilience, help mitigate grid disturbances, and take full advantage of all sources of affordable, reliable and secure energy, to accelerate our evolution into a more dependable future-ready grid. Increasing power demand, aging grid infrastructure, increasing frequencies of higher impact natural disasters, rising physical and cyber security attacks, and long lead times facing system upgrades, threaten the reliability, resilience, security and affordability of the nation’s grid. Power outages are becoming more common across the U.S., largely due to an increase in extreme weather events, and other causes such as transient instability associated with large dynamic load connections. Power outages obviously pose serious threats, especially in remote, electrically isolated communities, and in cases where they cut people off from critical services that impact their health and well-being. 

Grid systems, such as microgrids or networks of microgrids, provide strategic energy solutions via localized power systems that can operate in grid-connected modes, providing reliability services during normal and abnormal grid conditions, or in islanded modes, powering remote communities or commercial/industrial operations. 

Microgrid Systems Research & Development (MSRD) Program 

MOE envisions that microgrids will become essential building blocks of the future electric grid, leveraging all sources of affordable, reliable, and secure energy. The mission of the program is thus to accelerate beneficial microgrid innovations that improve the reliability, resilience, security and affordability of the U.S. electricity delivery system — advancing U.S. energy independence and dominance.

Microgrids are increasingly being deployed as strategic resilience assets across communities and commercial, industrial, and defense sectors. This is because microgrids strengthen resilience, helping to mitigate against grid disturbances with their ability to operate reliably (including providing ancillary grid supportive services) when the main grid is either stressed or down. In addition, advanced microgrids can enhance grid flexibility by being generation-agnostic, that is, supporting the optimal integration of all locally available energy resources to meet local demand and provide grid support. Furthermore, using local sources of energy to serve local loads helps reduce energy losses in transmission and distribution systems, as well as mitigate costly and long-lead time system upgrades, thereby improving grid efficiency and affordability. 

But there are challenges facing the broader adoption of existing microgrid solutions, including high upfront installation costs; system design complexity, including implications for specialized workforce training and hiring needs; inadequate approaches for resilience valuation; regulatory barriers, etc. In addition, there are emerging challenges facing the grid that require innovation beyond what is currently commercially available.   

Therefore, the program will advance practical solutions that innovate around or through these challenges to improve grid reliability, resilience, security and affordability. Over time, program investments will enable microgrids to evolve from isolated emergency power sources into dynamic, interconnected energy ecosystems that enhance grid resilience and provide critical stability to the broader electricity system.

The program will focus on developing and validating tools, methods, technologies and solution resources across the following four core focus areas to achieve this mission: