Under a more aggressive forecast scenario that assumes the alignment of regulatory structures, industry priorities, and public policy supports, microgrid revenues could surpass $3 billion during the same period.

Microgrids offer a compelling alternative to traditional energy generation and distribution, utilizing smart grid technologies to enable integrated control of distributed power generation and energy storage assets either in parallel to or islanded from the utility power grid, said the cleantech market intelligence firm.

According to Pike Research, there are more than 140 modern microgrid projects totaling over 1.1Gw of capacity worldwide (and 1.8Gw if legacy petrochemical and university campus systems are included in the tally).

Peter Asmus, senior analyst at Pike Research, said: “Microgrids will be deployed in all shapes and sizes. Microgrid deployments utilize a wide variety of renewable and fossil fuel-based power sources, new storage options, leading software innovations, and groundbreaking controls to aggregate distributed energy to provide greater value to end-use customers and host distribution utilities.

“These modular aggregation platforms can be applied to a full range of application segments, including commercial and industrial sites, university campuses, remote off-grid communities, and military microgrids.”

Mr Asmus adds that, despite the significant promise and industry excitement over the concept, few fully commercialized microgrids with significant generation capacity are actually up and running in North America, the world’s leading market for microgrids.

Industry leaders and other advocates are wrestling to find the appropriate business models and regulatory structures for decentralizing the power distribution infrastructure in a quest to integrate renewable energy while adding greater reliability, security, and self-healing capabilities to electricity distribution, especially in times of emergencies and larger grid outages, Mr Asmus said.

The answers to these open questions, adds Mr Asmus, will have a profound influence on the long-term evolution of the electric power industry.

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