Viewpoint: Minigrids Are a Missing Piece of the Integrated Electrification Puzzle
By Benjamin Attia, Caitlin Connelly, and Isaac Maze-Rothstein
Whether booming off-grid power demand in emerging markets is met with grid extension or distributed renewables will be central to the growth story of the global clean-power sector.
As the technological and financial tool kit for providing affordable, reliable, appropriate and clean power to every household and business continues to expand, deployments of off-grid, decentralized, renewable energy systems will take an increasingly larger bite out of present and future power demand on the grid in countries that represent over one-third of the world’s population.
On-grid and off-grid power service offerings will increasingly see convergence as next-generation distributed energy service companies continue to evolve and scale. Because the future grid will be increasingly renewable, low-cost, digitally managed and, eventually, demand-following, the diffusion of off-grid systems is still highly interrelated with the rest of the grid.
Photo courtesy of cowins.
Source: Greentech Media (link opens in a new window)
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