• What is a  super micro grid (SMG)?

An SMG is a power system that is independent from the nation’s grid. These systems are generally used from power individual devices to a small village. SMGs are mainly composed of renewable energy sources, for example: wind energy, solar energy, thermal energy, etc.  This is evident in that it costs billions to build a new power plant and would be uneconomical to support such small loads.

• Benefit of SMGs

In rural areas, it may be impractical to run transmission lines hundreds and thousands of miles to power a single home or small village.  This is due to the high cost of engineering to plan the distribution, cost of materials, and large amount of losses that will arise from long transmission lines.  Due to the SMG being physically close to the demand it’s supplying, this naturally reduces losses in the transmission lines; but more importantly it provides power to secluded areas where it may not have had electricity in the past.

An SMG can be used to power appliances in an individual’s home.  Technology has evolved such that a customer may buy kits to power one’s water heater, refrigerator  and/or batteries to store the energy to be used on other desired household appliances.

• Cons of SMGs

Since SMGs are composed primarily of variable energy sources, there must be energy storage large enough to provide for the demand when there is insufficient energy being produced at the time of this demand. That is, if the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, in all likelihood power will be needed 24 hours per day and seven days per week. Therefore, to satisfy the power needs with the variability of these types of power generation, batteries are the most common solution.  This additional equipment is expensive resulting in a long payback period. An example of this is shown here. In large scale applications, batteries may not be a viable solution due to the cost and size of battery banks.

– by Zachary Newell – Posted 11/12/2012 – newell1@illinois.edu

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