From December tornadoes to arctic blasts, this winter weather has us on our toes. In Texas, keeping the lights on becomes a concern.
As the state continues to strengthen its power grid, individuals and businesses are exploring their own options if extreme weather knocks out power. This is part of the reason why microgrid usage is on the rise, as the Dallas Fed noted in a recent report.
Mahmoud Kabalan, associate professor and director of the Microgrid Research Center at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, says that while generators and microgrids both provide backup power, there are key differences between the two.
Generators “can sit there for years until something happens and they start working,” he said. However, microgrids “operate 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.”
Microgrids work with the grid to generate and supply their own power, with or without power outages. Kavalan said it will be generated from sources such as “a combination of diesel, natural gas and renewable energy such as solar.”
Microgrids are used by the military, he added. George Gross, a professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said other institutions where power outages could be significant are also using microgrids.
“We’re seeing universities, for example, becoming microgrids and becoming hospitals,” he says.
Similar trends are becoming more prevalent in commercial companies. Nationally, microgrid installations nearly doubled between 2016 and 2023, said Prithvi Kalkunte, an economics programmer at the Dallas Fed.
In Texas, “we’ve seen a sharp increase since about 2016,” Calcuunte said. The number of installations ranges from about 20 to 300.
“We’re seeing an uptick after Hurricane Harvey. Many companies, including HEB and Buc-ee’s, are relying on electricity near their sites, in part for reliability reasons and if an outage would result in some cost to the company. We are choosing to add microgrids to be able to supply this,” Kalkunte said.
And this isn’t just a way for Texas businesses to avoid power outages; they could even make money by selling the power back onto the grid.
“There are different tiers of benefits, and obviously one of those tiers is the ability to earn money from the market,” said energy consultant Doug Lewin.
Lewin said that although generating electricity from a microgrid is more expensive, the resiliency, independence and chance to sell some of the power back make it worth it.
This story originally aired on “Marketplace” on January 2, 2025.
