Microgrids, Infrastructure Resilience, and Advanced Controls Launchpad (MIRACL) Research: Controls

Distributed wind projects produce electricity consumed generally on-site or locally. Often used to generate electricity for remote communities or offset a portion of energy costs for grid-connected customers, distributed wind systems can be part of an isolated grid or a grid-connected microgrid. They can also be connected at the distribution voltage level of a grid system as either behind-the-meter for self-consumption or on the distribution grid to serve local loads. In each of these cases, the value of the distributed wind energy can offset other energy sources. Distributed wind offers a large, addressable resource potential and could support millions of systems and thousands of gigawatts (GW) of power production capacity. As a result, utilities, communities, and nations are looking to distributed generation as an effective way to meet future energy needs.