The future of energy management

Microgrids – power generation made smart. Microgrids are a reliable alternative wherever a stable power supply is needed. Siemens can leverage its comprehensive microgrid portfolio and tackle challenges throughout the entire system.

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Microgrids in 200 seconds

Why are microgrids the future of energy management?

Microgrids in 200 seconds

In short: find out the most important information about microgrids.

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Microgrids – right on trend

Efficient, resilient, and sustainable distributed energy systems

Two major trends are driving the transformation of the energy world: digitalization and the shift from centralized unidirectional to distributed energy systems. These trends as well as prosumers’ needs are driving the development of microgrids.

Always an intelligent solution

Microgrids contain all the elements of complex energy systems, they maintain the balance between generation and consumption, and they can operate on and/or off grid. They are ideal for supplying power to remote or poorly developed regions with no connection to a public network. In addition, more and more industrial operators are using microgrids to produce the electricity they need cost-effectively, sustainably, and reliably.

Microgrids use a variety of energy sources, including photovoltaic and wind-power plants as well as small hydro-power and biomass-power plants. Biodiesel generators and emergency power units, storage modules, and intelligent control systems ensure the security of supply.

Siemens provides a comprehensive portfolio of products, solutions, and services to help build and operate microgrids of any size. They provide generation and distribution of electrical energy as well as monitoring and controlling of microgrids.

At a glance

Microgrid Benefits

1. Economics and energy efficiency

Using sophisticated software, operators can optimize power usage based on demand, utility prices, and other factors. Application areas most impacted are campuses and commercial and industrial areas.
Watch the video about Algonquin College in Ontario/Canada, where a microgrid helps pave the way to becoming a sustainable institution of the future.

2. Reliability and resilience

Microgrids are designed to provide uninterrupted 24/7 power and to balance load demands for an organization with changing power needs. Relevant applications are critical infrastructures, military institutions, commercial and industrial areas, remote locations and islands.
This video of the Native American reservation Blue Lake Rancheria in California/USA provides interesting insights.

3. Sustainability

By using primarily renewable energies, microgrids reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, which is often required by government regulations. That makes them especially attractive for campuses, utilities, and islands.
Ventotene Island in Italy demonstrates the benefits of a microgrid in terms of sustainability.

Trailer

Insights into current microgrid technology

Island grid control and optimization – Black start – Island grid operation and synchronization: Watch our three trailers, and find out how our microgrid solutions stand the test on location.
Island grid control and optimization: Solution manager Jeremy Wiles explains how the Siemens microgrid automation solution controls and optimizes the operation of an island grid.
Black start: The Siemens microgrid automation solution provides efficient, stable, and fully automatic operation of island grids. One of its functions is the black start after a blackout. Solution manager Jeremy Wiles explains how it works.
Island grid operation and synchronization: Microgrids can be separated from the main grid if the main grid is at risk of an outage. Siemens Senior Key Expert Markus Reischböck explains how this works and how the island grid is resynchronized after the danger has been averted.
Download our interactive PDF and access compact knowledge about microgrids and our portfolio.

Download Microgrid iPDF

Mastering all challenges

One offering for distributed energy systems

To integrate distributed energy systems (DES), we support you in several steps to reach the most efficient system. Define and simulate, integrate the right controller, monitor and improve the system. Several portfolio elements help you create a microgrid solution that meets your requirements perfectly.
One Microgrid connected offering: Simulate, Implement Control, Monitor and improve

We will work with you to design and deliver a comprehensive, and integrated microgrid solution for your energy infrastructure project. Our proven expertise with complex decentralized energy sources, leading control systems, and transmission and distribution systems, along with our suite of services, make us an ideal partner for stakeholders.

Learn more

Components of our Microgrid Offerings

1. From simulation with the energy twin to solution benefits

The first process step is the energy twin as a simulation of the entire microgrid project. We also evaluate the basic scenario of your decentralized energy system and the benefits of the planned overall solution.

 

Our experts support you with a simulation-based supply system analysis to define the optimal microgrid design. We ensure that technical and economic requirements are met.

2. The right controller for your microgrid

The scope and design of your microgrid determines the appropriate controller to implement.
 

Microgrid Control – a SICAM application ensures reliable monitoring and controlling of microgrids. It protects your independent power supply from blackouts and balances out grid fluctuations and fluctuations in power consumption.

 

Spectrum Power MGMS is a software solution for optimal microgrid management and control. Some of its advanced functions include seven-day load and generation forecasting, unit commitment optimization, load shed, seamless transition to and from island mode, and market participation tools.

3. Real-time knowledge, real-time results

Distributed Energy Optimization (DEOP) helps you get the most out of your facility’s energy production and consumption. In today’s market, operational requirements demand better situation analysis achieved through the sharing of knowledge and experience within your facility and across different facilities around the world.

Meet your energy management challenges head-on with near real time performance data. By combining historic and real time data, you can increase transparency, benchmark assets and locations, as well as apply advanced analytics to maximize your performance.

4. Operational improvement through data analysis

Attaining data is good, but not enough. We want our customers to extract the most value from it. Siemens Managed Services supports customers to analyze the data with powerful tools. Based on the analysis, we provide recommendations to improve the operational efficiency system and suggest structural changes. Once the improvements have been identified, the recommended changes can be simulated and the savings can be quantified.

News

What is new about microgrids?

Here is where we provide the most up-to-date news on microgrids. Stay tuned for the latest information.
Wildpoldsried blockchain-based local energy market
Wildpoldsried, Germany

An appetite for locally sourced, renewable energy

The prosumers of Wildpoldsried are testing a blockchain-based local energy market.
Barbara Humpton
Siemens, Princeton

Microgrid as living lab

Solar-powered micro-grid ensures clean, reliable power. Together with customers, solutions to decarbonize the world's infrastructure are investigated.

Download the article

Water overflow
Wastewater facilities

Offsetting higher energy costs

Wastewater treatment facilities reduce their energy bills by implementing microgrids with solar power and battery storage.
Humboldt, California

Smart adaption to lower demand

Microgrid control prevents backfeed and keeps connection to the grid
Illuminated Entrance, World

Constant supply of power

Energy resiliency is microgrid technology’s signature value
Vienna, Austria

Microgrid for Siemens Campus

Smart system will optimize the management of energy and heating.
Denver, USA

Microgrids for public institutions

Xcel Energy plans to build seven microgrids to strengthen the resilience of the community.
Sodo, Ethiopia

Electricity for farm, school and households

Solar-hybrid plant supplying reliable, sustainable and affordable electricity.
Columbia, USA

Split into microgrids for secure supply

Innovative solutions for situation awareness, distributed control and autonomous restoration.
Manchester (UK), Eindhoven (NL) and Stavanger (NO)

Sustainable cities project

Project proved low-carbon cost-efficient smart cities are achievable, repeatable and scalable.
Belém, Brazil

12 Microgrids to improve energy supply

Siemens will design and install twelve microgrids in the Brazilian state of Pará. For a central control center in Belém, Siemens will deliver the automation, protection and control technology to improve the analysis of plant data and thus increase the availability and reliability of the plants.
Mars, Outer Space

A microgrid for Mars?

Are we exploring the possibility of supplying energy for civilization on the Red Planet? Well, based on our innovative and visionary spirit, it surely could be. Get the background on this phantastic story.
Erlangen, Germany

Microgrid laboratory

At Siemens’ microgrid laboratory in Erlangen, engineers are testing advanced solutions for regional medium- and low-voltage structures. The equipment includes a digital synchronous generator, a battery storage system including an inverter, two emulation systems based on three inverters, adjustable loads, a controllable transformer, and a circuit breaker. Various processes are demonstrated: on- and off-grid, fault identification, black-start capability, and synchronization with the superimposed network.
Tallin, Estonia

End-to-End Cyber Security

Power supply reliability is more important than ever before – on all voltage levels, from the point of grid infeed all the way to the consumer. Discover solutions from Siemens that help establish highly resilient power systems that immediately recover from disruptive events and adapt to impending threats and dangers. 
Wildpoldsried, Germany

The new core of the energy system

Wildpoldsried is the location of a field test for the transition to renewable energy in Germany. The small village utilizes Siemens’ microgrid technology to incorporate renewables for energy self-sufficiency.
Wunsiedel, Germany

The cellular approach: smart energy region

The energy region Wunsiedel in southern Germany uses its territory to field-test intelligently connected decentralized systems to qualify and release secure solutions in energy supply.
References

Microgrids operating successfully – worldwide

All over the world, organizations and communities with a need for dependable energy are looking to the microgrid as an efficient, powerful, and ingenious solution. Advanced Siemens technology contributes significantly to their successful operation. Here are some examples.
The great tribal seal of the blue lake rancheria
Blue Lake Rancheria
California, USA

Amid rolling blackouts in California, a microgrid proves its resilience

  • A typical application for the microgrid use case “Municipality”

  • A microgrid powers a 100-acre reservation including offices, casino, hotel, and Red Cross safety shelter 

  • Siemens’ microgrid management software allows the distributed energy resources to be intelligently managed

Blue Lake Rancheria's Story
Overview of Keele University campus site
Keele University
Newcastle, United Kingdom

Building the future of energy with Keele University

  • A typical application for the microgrid use case "campus" at Europe’s largest single, integrated electricity, gas and heat Smart Energy Network Demonstrator

  • Reduce carbon emissions and improve security of supply to the campus

  • The SEND microgrid will be a ‘living laboratory’ for research into low carbon energy systems and development of new smart energy technologies and services for university students, business and industry.

Link to Website
Island with network structure
Isabela Island, Galapagos
Puerto Villamil, Ecuador

Driving zero fossil fuels for Galápagos

  • A typical application for the microgrid use case "Island" 

  • Creating a reliable, safe, and sustainable power supply for Isabela Island

  • A hybrid power plant designed to run completely carbon-neutral based on solar energy and biodiesel with a battery storage system

Link to Website
Algonquin College
Eastern Ontario, Canada

A unique spirit of partnership

  • A typical application for the microgrid use case “Campus”

  • The College of Applied Arts in Technology is on an ambitious journey to becoming a sustainable institution of the future

  • With Siemens, it found a partner to help educate, operate, collaborate, and innovate for a clean energy future

Buenavista del Cobre
Cananea, Mexico

A reliable grid can move mountains

  • A typical application for the microgrid use case “Industry”

  • Using a Siemens control system, a copper mine realized a 60 percent reduction in downtime and significant cost savings

  • Siemens constructed a new state-of-the-art DCC that integrates the Spectrum Power grid control platform

Link to website
Ventotene island in sunset
Ventotene Island
Italy

How to optimize an island’s power supply

  • A typical application for the microgrid use case “Islands”

  • A SIESTORAGE battery storage system secures the power supply on the Italian island of Ventotene

  • The solution enables the more economical and efficient operation of the entire energy system

Link to Website
PV field and wind energy for Wildpoldsried
IREN2
Wildpoldsried, Germany

Smart technology combined with science

  • A typical application for the microgrid use case “Municipality”

  • Ingenuity meets pioneering spirit: The first microgrid test of its kind outside the laboratory

  • The village set up stable grids with a functioning electricity supply from a range of renewable sources

Link to Website
Expo 2015
Milan, Italy

The art of setting up a smart grid

  • A typical application for the microgrid use case “Cities”

  • At Expo 2015 Siemens delivered the intelligent grid technology that supplied the fair with electricity

  • The energy management system was based on sophisticated cloud technology

Link to press release
Electric vehicle charging station
Savona University
Genoa, Italy

IQ power for tomorrow’s dottore

  • A typical application for the microgrid use case “Campus”

  • Implement an intelligent microgrid for the university campus in Savona, Italy

  • Goal: Provide electrical and thermal energy. Benefits: High efficiency and grid stability, lower emissions, easy control

Watch trailer

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