The complexities of Energy as a science, field of study, an industry, a life source for homes and industrial activity, etc., are one of many burdens facing energy technology and transition leaders trying to build group consensus and drive to make actual system changes. This is true at any level: within organizations, across industries, within regions – the challenge of getting large groups of people to align in pursuit of transformational changes is staggering.
Barriers get more significant when one ventures out of professional firms and industry fields into community-level energy transition efforts. Within community groups education levels, experiences and exposures to energy, policy and business topics can vary substantially. In the United States, many energy innovators have been digging into this community-level work in recent years, furiously taking advantage of historic levels of government funding (IIJA, NEVI, IRA, etc.) flowing to actual on-the-ground projects in cities: shoring up unstable utility circuits; electrifying port infrastructure and bus fleets; putting solar on school rooftops; building out community microgrids, etc. The government was investing and teams who were able to cast visions and harness complexity quickly for execution were rewarded with resources. How did we do it?
Reducing Complexity to Connect with Communities
It’s been a boom time for collaboration and creativity in energy at state and local levels – where ideas honed for many years by various expert communities have finally given way to implementation efforts. Resources were unlocked and some of the nation’s most innovative leaders helped government, utility, company and community leaders understand how to remove barriers to execution. In many cases, new data and visualization tools have allowed groups to better understand macro challenges in energy and climate and align their focus for action. [i]
In Chicago, energy leaders have been able to align Climate Action Plan goals for carbon reduction and increased capacity for solar, storage and electric vehicles (EV), with legislative supports (FEJA, CEJA) for clean energy tech projects, and focus them on priority communities and circuits identified in ComEd and Ameren “Grid Modernization” plans. Connecting the dots on how many projects are needed, aligned to designated funding supports and where to situate the projects along the grid system is all being brought together with data and visualization tools. This comprehensive overview of territorial energy goals gives engaged community leaders’ confidence that experts working across public and private entities are engaged for the long haul in projects at different levels. [ii]
H.G. Chissell, Founder and CEO of Advanced Energy Group (AEG) in Chicago (an active public-private sector convening body) notes that the decade he spent cultivating community engagement through consistent quarterly meetings with energy stakeholders at all levels (e.g. public utility commissioners, utilities, state and local government officials, corporate participants, national labs and universities, etc.) is the reason AEG could quickly stand up The Carbon League entity in 2023 to pursue energy grants and administer energy projects in and around the city. “It has taken a lot of time and hard-earned personal recommendations to garner trust required for organized community groups in East St. Louis, North Lawndale and others to engage us in pursuing and developing community energy grants and projects.” [iii]
If energy is a tough subject and communities are typically removed from energy system decisions made at the top – why are they leaning into distributed energy projects today through groups like AEG? Darnell Tingle, Executive Director of United Congregations of Metro-East (UCM), explains that his community has been making the connections between air quality, health and wellness, local transportation networks and energy system choices for many years. Working in concert with their utility (Ameren) and a range of experts sourced at AEG, UMC is now establishing a clean energy task force to execute their vision. Leveraging visualization and mapping tools, they have created a vision for a neighborhood virtual power plant, connecting churches, hospitals and powered by solar, storage and EV charging systems.[iv]
The real key to securing ecosystem engagement across Chicago and the greater Midwest has been to identify and communicate the various economic and growth angles associated with new energy systems that simultaneously appeal to different constituencies. In the case of digital distributed clean energy, the benefits are compelling.
Digital Energy Intrigue: Appealing to a Range of Growth and Economic Development Objectives
Energy Resilience
Ideas about resilience and directly controlling energy sources to ensure availability is what initially drove hospital networks in Illinois and other parts of the country around 2010 to begin investigating using their own microgrids to power facilities. Energy reliability is essential to economic growth. Communities are conscious of this fact and are increasingly interested in exploring whether solar and storage solutions can reliably power individual homes and make urban locations more attractive to local businesses who bear the economic brunt of outages.
Energy Demand
Utilities are also responding to increasing demands from tech companies like Amazon and Microsoft to develop data centers across their territories. The exponential volume of data centers needing to come online begs the question of whether situating these new loads in areas where electrical circuits prioritized for upgrades is a way to drive more investment and jobs where they are most needed while shoring up electrical grids. Blackrock and Microsoft aligned their interests in data center and Artificial Intelligence (AI) growth and also made the connection to required energy supports. They announced a new partnership in Fall of 2024 with intent to invest $100B in “AI infrastructure,” including electrical systems buildout in the United States. [v]
As we’ve seen with other similar landmark investment deals like the one EDPR and Google struck in 2023, tech companies have also contributed to provision of low-income energy supports in exchange for ability to scale data centers and technology centers within state territories.[vi] While the requests to install new technology loads and supporting distributed energy systems are often siloed from utility Grid Modernization efforts, we must continue to actively connect the efforts to achieve business, energy and climate goals, at once.
Economic Development
The drive to find new economic uses for buildings and parking lot infrastructure is also contributing to growing interest in clean energy technology. Local schools that have experienced some of the earliest electric bus fleet conversions shuttling their students now wonder if their rooftop and parking lot spaces make them attractive locations for solar and storage solutions and alternative locations for electric bus fleets to charge during the day or at night.
Major universities in the Midwest region are also planning conversions of their own fleets to electric and placing EV charging on near campuses. They also increasingly seek to collaborate with their cities on more substantial microgrid projects.[vii] Universities are well-positioned to have students experiment with designing, implementing and managing novel energy systems, including those that engage with EV drivers. Indeed, the growing convergence between digital technologies (IT) and the energy technologies needed for distributed systems (OT), is an emerging field of study where Universities are keen to contribute intellectual capital. The State of Michigan, home to major US automakers, has been a stand-out in the Midwest in recent years for catalyzing several university-led R&D efforts associated with digital transportation networks and EVs. The University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute and its Electric Vehicle Institute are marshaling a portfolio of projects intended to contribute to national energy transition capabilities in the years to come.
The intrigue of digital energy systems has galvanized at community levels across the Midwest, with new supportive ecosystems being formed. One way innovation leaders have communicated with the various energy constituencies about the economic potential of distributed systems and how to tap into it is through data and visualization tools and exercises. In some cases, simply imagining and drawing energy scenarios to get people to react to what a distributed system could look like at an airport, or in a retail environment has been enough to get minds engaged. In other cases, digital maps and online courses have been created, as well as experimental digital landscapes within the metaverse to allow for maximum creativity and understanding. [viii]
Visualization and Experimentation: Key to Advancing Distributed Energy Systems
It’s important to remember that electric vehicles were a dream, until even young kids began noticing them popping up in major cities and towns across the country. Now, seeing a bank of charging systems in retail parking lots is commonplace to many.
Jana Gerber, President of Schneider Electric’s Microgrid business, says the same “seeing is believing” mentality and uptick in lived experiences with distributed energy is normalizing microgrid concepts for average US residents today. “Schneider Electric launched a new home solution recently, and in 2022 engaged a community project with KB Homes that includes solar on rooftops, battery energy storage, and backup battery storage for the community. This is essentially a mini-microgrid that can power residents through a prolonged outage.” Jana also revealed she is a field tester of the equipment in her own home, gaining hands-on experience with the inner workings of systems her team is bringing to the market at a larger scale for businesses, hospital networks and more. [ix]
Being able to see and experience clean energy infrastructure causes imaginations to take off on the different possibilities for energy and the ways it can shape community engagement, transactions and local lifestyles. Artists, designers, innovators and technologists are leveraging what has already been introduced to seed new ideas that get communities talking early about the important details of energy projects. Visual tools allow innovators to cut more directly into key questions about who will own the systems, what business model will support them, what it should look like and feel like to engage with equipment, which audiences to attract and train first and – ultimately – what we are trying to accomplish and learn.
The US government gave clean energy technologists, strategists, investors and developers a lot to think about and do at local levels with implementation projects these last several years, and the impact of those initial projects will spur even more engagement and progress. The financial and policy supports gave clean energy innovators from different organizations the impetus to come together and knit our information sources in ways diverse audiences could relate to and drive forward. That’s how we are scaling new energy efforts today – getting hands-on and combining analysis and thinking with actual building and doing to speed human and societal impact.
[i] Contact author for additional non-public examples of mapping and visualization tools used in community energy efforts (grossierin@gmail.com)
[ii] Initial Survey on Chicago Ports https://tinyurl.com/bdzdff2t
[iii] Advanced Energy Group in Chicago https://goadvancedenergy.com/ founds The Carbon League https://www.thecarbonleague.org/
[iv] Community Change Work in E. St. Louis https://tinyurl.com/w39a4szx
[v] Blackrock, Global Infrastructure Partners, Microsoft and MGX Launch AI partnership to invest in data centers and supporting power infrastructure. https://tinyurl.com/55477t3s
[vi] Google and EDP Renewables Sign Framework to Develop 650MWp of Distributed Solar Energy in the USA, Marking the Largest US Corporate Sponsorship of Distributed PV. https://tinyurl.com/ynz3dp56
[vii] The Rise of Innovation on College Campuses, Hanna Chenoweth, Jan 3, 2018 https://info.higheredfacilitiesforum.com/blog/the-rise-of-university-microgrids
[viii] Accenture Chicago Innovation Team renderings of potential EV-charging models tied to business models
[ix] KB Home Builds a Sustainable American Neighborhood, Schneider Electric Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Pt_zUq4iPI
