The world is reinventing electricity. This reinvention will affect every aspect of the electric power system, including:

  1. How we make it (from clean renewable sources)
  2. How we use it (far more efficiently)
  3. What we use it for (including electric transportation)
  4. How we deliver it (via a smart, self-healing grid)

The SFIP Global Microgrid Center and Smart Systems Lab will play a crucial role in this energy transformation while bringing new revenues and jobs to the region.

GMC Components

GMC will serve as a real-world laboratory for developing, demonstrating, and deploying next-generation integrated infrastructure, beginning with electricity, and later expanding to include telecommunications, water, gas, electric vehicles, and other essential services. More specifically, it will include:

  1. A Microgrid Laboratory
  2. A workforce training program
  3. Smart city (“unified”) infrastructure R&D (in a future phase)

Market Needs, Gaps, and Opportunities

A microgrid is a small, self-contained electric power system that can connect and disconnect from the main grid. Many experts believe microgrids (as depicted in the graphic) are the future of the electric power system because of their many advantages.

But much research and development still needs to be done to make those benefits real. GMC will play a nationally prominent role in that much-needed R&D, with the associated economic benefits. Preliminary planning work has identified several large technical, structural, and market gaps.

Santa Fe brings numerous strengths to meeting these challenges, among them: Santa Fe Community College’s Sustainable Technologies Center; world-class expertise in complex systems, visualization, and modeling, and smart grid technologies in the region; a strong interest in energy independence and localization, with the potential for a municipal grid; and the Community College District as a potential test bed.

Regional and National Impacts

GMC could be an important first step toward developing a smart city plan and municipal grid for Santa Fe, with important economic impacts in new business and job creation. It will also be designed so that successful results can be diffused to other interested communities nationally, and worldwide. This will enhance the economic returns to GMC and Santa Fe, and magnify the social impact.

The Lab will employ SFIP’s multi-disciplinary approach, combining (and experimenting with) advanced technology; user-centered design; public policy; private finance; and environmental and social considerations; while supporting the creation of intellectual property, spinouts, and entrepreneurial activity.

Partners & Planning Team

GMC and the Smart Systems Lab is a collaborative project of SFIP and Santa Fe Community College, which will develop an associated workforce training and professional development component. Other industry, research, and public sector collaborators will join as the project develops.

GMC’s Project Director, Terry Mohn, founder of General MicroGrids, Inc., is an internationally recognized smart grid and microgrid expert, who served as chief technology strategist for San Diego Gas & Electric, is an advisor to DOE and the Department of Commerce, and chairs the MicroGrid working group of the U.N. Foundation’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative. Project Advisor Jesse Berst is Managing Director of Global Smart Energy, Inc., a strategic consulting firm; and Chief Analyst at SmartGridNews.com, the internet’s largest and highest-ranked smart grid site.

Endorsements

GMC has been endorsed by the NM Federal Congressional delegation, and the Energy Task Force of the Regional Planning Authority (a joint Santa Fe County/City entity).

Development Phases and Status

The project will proceed in three budget and fundraising phases:

Phase I — Seed Funds for a preliminary technical and business plan, to procure:

Phase II — Planning Funds for an investment-grade business, finance, operations, implementation, and tech/engineering plan, to procure:

Phase III — Implementation Funds from federal and private investment sources, to physically build out the Microgrid and Center.