Quantifying the role of community urban form in microgrid design

Abstract As wildfire risk increases, microgrids offer a form of adaption for communities experiencing ‘Public Safety Power Shutoffs’ (PSPS), or times when utilities de-energize transmission lines to avoid sparking fires. While microgrids are effective at preventing blackouts, they are not always economical. Existing literature has explored case studies for individual communities but has not considered microgrids across multiple urban forms. We provide the first analysis of how microgrid development can vary across rural urban forms by clustering hundreds of California communities at risk of PSPS into four urban form types, building bottom-up, community-level demand profiles for their buildings, and optimizing microgrid design and operation across four different included building scenarios for five communities in each cluster. We find that while urban form and the included building scenario does not significantly impact the system’s cost per MW of peak load, it can lead to differences in overall cost, highlighting the role of funding models. For communities with a high diversity of buildings, many parcels, and large parcels, the demand and overall cost are dominated by commercial buildings, as opposed to residential. The opposite is true for communities with a low diversity of buildings. A successful system could be built for all communities by pairing solar with diesel generators or battery storage, with average system payback periods of 2.54 years and 4.8 years, respectively. Overall, it is essential to consider the distribution of building types when planning microgrids.