The good thing about microgrids is that they are often built to the user’s particular needs. That’s also the bad thing about microgid development. Such tailoring — the kind found in advanced microgrids like those at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, Princeton University, or Montgomery County, Maryland — takes a lot of planning. Consideration must go into the site’s unique energy profile. How does the customer use energy, what’s the cost, what kind of resources are available locally? And that’s just the start in a process that can require multiple consultants and vendors to complete. Getting to these answers slows microgrid development, which is an issue in places like California where power outages are now routine due to wildfire threats. Households and businesses need microgrids yesterday. Is there a way to streamline the steps? A lot of people are on the mission, among them Worley, an international engineering, procurement and construction company and Xendee, a California energy software firm. Together they recently formed a joint venture, Veckta , that they say offers a way to significantly reduce the time and cost of microgrid development.

To move forward or not?

Veckta provides a software as a service product that takes on several development steps typically done by a range of vendors. It “very quickly allows you to assess, design and optimize distributed energy solutions, both technically and financially,” said Gareth Evans, Veckta CEO & co-founder, in an interview with Microgrid Knowledge. The partners have used the software for their own projects, among them a microgrid for Seattle City Lights and others for the cannabis industry, a 110 MW fully islanded system in North America, and a hybrid microgrid in Australia. They decided to release the software broadly to help move microgrids forward more quickly. Evans sees it assisting consultants, […]