North America Leads in Microgrids, Says Navigant

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As a region, North America is the world’s leading market for microgrids with a planned, proposed, and deployed capacity of 2,505 MW, according to a report from Navigant Research.

The 2Q 2013 Microgrid Deployment Tracker from Navigant finds this represents an additional 55 projects since the 4Q 2012 Tracker and an additional 417 MW. Of the total North American microgrid capacity, 1,459 MW is currently online and over 1,122 MW is in the planned/under development or proposed phase.

As a sector, microgrids are beginning to move into the mainstream, with a greater focus being placed on viable business models. The result is a much more robust microgrid market than just a few years ago. According to the report, more than 480 microgrid projects are proposed, planned, under construction, or operating worldwide, representing nearly 3,800 MW of capacity.

In this iteration of the Tracker, the global community/utility segment leads in new capacity additions: 259 MW. These additions, which largely occurred in Europe and North America, are a reflection of the increasing linkages between the smart city movement and municipal-scale microgrids. The commercial/industrial segment had the greatest increase in the number of projects (27) in 2Q 2013, largely due to the sharing of data from Schneider Electric.

Navigant Research expects the commercial/industrial segment to show the largest growth in terms of capacity additions in the near future due to deployments of DC microgrids at large data centers.

Environment + Energy Leader