Microgrid as a Civic Infrastructure
How will rewiring today's choices around electrical grids shape tomorrow's communities?
An emergent alternative to our current system is the microgrid, uniquely exemplified at the Illinois Institute of Technology, which combines renewable energy sources with intelligent and reliable energy distribution. Institute of Design faculty and students built a collection of design interventions that leverage the possibilities of thinking of and using the microgrid as a civic infrastructure.
Our system of solutions illustrates a shift in the energy paradigm: we not only demonstrate the use of renewable energy sources, but we also show how the use of renewable energy through microgrids can grow local economies and advance an equitable energy democracy.
AWARDS
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Gauri Bhatt
Mithila Kedambadi
Mrinali Gokani
Monica Villazon San Martin
Kelvin Yu
Zeya Chen
Samar Elhouar
Catherine Wieczorek
Alpha Wong
Zack Schwartz
Veronica Paz Soldan
Siwei Sun -
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Azra Sungu
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Weslynne Ashton
Christopher Rudd
Ruth Schmidt
Gretchen Bakke
Gerry Derksen
Jessica Meharry
System of Solutions: Greening the Electricity System
Diversifying Energy Sources
How might we encourage and enable more circular approaches in our production, consumption, and disposal of energy within the microgrid to minimize environmental disruption and ensure energy resilience?
GOALS
Minimize negative impacts on the environment by encouraging closed-loop energy cycles that can reduce waste.
Increase the capacity of the grid to absorb disturbances such as weather conditions or supply/demand
Buildings manage (produce, control, exchange, store, etc.) their energy to diversify energy sources. Buildings and communities prioritize sustainable generation by recycling the grey energy that is otherwise lost. They contribute the surplus generation to the community grid or purchase from the neighboring grids when demand exceeds supply. The interdependence of buildings for energy distribution contributes to energy resilience.
Growing Local Economy
How might we leverage the affordances of the microgrid to create new choice architectures that can activate local resources and grow local economies?
GOALS
- Create platforms for participation with lowered barriers for entry and increased ability for active engagement.
- Increase local economy resiliency by expanding opportunities to exercise expertise, strengthen community ties, and safeguard the health and wellness of community members.
The collective capacity of community members and the economic potential of their assets are strengthened through the actions enabled by the Energy Hub Co-op. This people-centered enterprise safeguards the networked system and marketplace platform transactions like matching, trading, buying, or providing services (or energy). The hub enables new opportunities for community members to offer and advance their technical expertise in exchange for credits, which can, in turn, be redeemed to acquire microgrid technologies or other services. Amongst the innovative community-facing services provided, is neighborhood Nutri-kitchens — an amalgamation of food lockers, dining zones, and self-help counters that allows for dignified access to nutrition for community members. Additionally, Energy Hub acts as an aggregator of local distributed energy resources when negotiating energy contracts with larger industrial or commercial consumers. This exchange helps build strategic partnerships between the community and the industries and can motivate reinvestment in these distributed economies.
Advancing Energy Democracy
How might the microgrid incentivize more equitable modes of communal engagement?
GOALS
A gradual and calculated shift from wealth accumulation to shared ownership and community resources.
Ability to reclaim and restructure existing infrastructure to be more democratic and participatory.
Increase individual and communal self-determination Incentivize equitable modes of communal participation.
The new transaction and capabilities that are revealed in the local economy and diversification also open new possibilities in terms of governance structures toward civic participation. In our explorations, it became clear that a critical transaction revolved around education at all levels. Energy management and data literacy were critical skills that, if ignored, could continue to increase current system inequities. An energy co-op hub helps materialize and provides resources and services to help everyone gain access to skills and resources to make informed choices. Other institutions that could play key roles are digital community squares that aggregate and facilitate communal conversations and decision-making. The community increases collective resilience while providing pathways to innovate public and private partnerships where there is a space for open experimentation and further exploration around new services and ways to rethink resources.
Next steps: preparing for a paradigm shift
While these proposals are meant to enable new actions, they are not sufficient to create change in isolation. To actually create change, students identified two major strategies and corresponding tactics for preparing communities to shift to new energy models and drive the paradigm shift necessary to realize sustainable energy infrastructures:
Normalize active participation in energy transition. Provide tools and technology that grant consumers the power to engage in decision making:
Community-oriented trading, for instance, could transform community members from passive consumers of energy monopolies to active participants in the market for the good of their community.
Energy justice education would equip community members to understand, debate, and participate actively in the creation and evolution of the civic infrastructure, from energy generator installation to shaping economic opportunities.
Encourage informed, cooperative, and responsible consumption. Behavioral nudges and economic incentives can help guide consumers toward more desired and sustainable behaviors:
Adopt new mental models for understanding our relationship to energy so that the inequities embedded in our current energy infrastructure aren’t repeated. Credit systems, energy labels and storage banks, along with incentives, will drive us to think of energy as more than just a commodity and promote collective energy stewardship.
Invest in data-enabled intelligence to increase adaptive capacity and make collaboration easier. Appliance optimization systems learn and adapt, smart meters respond to emerging needs in real time, and ethical algorithms, Ethereum blockchain, and open source databases support expanding energy democracy.
Diversify energy production, transforming grey energy into usable electrical energy and utilizing unused spaces in buildings to generate power.
Ultimately, students emerged from the workshop certain that design approaches can shape a new energy paradigm that benefits not only the environment but also the people connected to the grid.
While not blueprints, these solutions and thinking can move us all forward, informing new approaches as we pursue a healthier relationship with energy.