As a result of our 2023 WI PSC grant, VCED provided funding to study the feasibility of a microgrid in the village of LaFarge.  After the 2018 flood, the community was interested in seeing how the implementation of solar plus battery storage would benefit residents and businesses during extreme flooding, or other weather events which cause stress to the transmission grid.

June 13, 2024 – Amy Simpkins explains the process of studying the impact that solar plus storage would have for the village.  She covers the components of a microgrid and how they interact to serve demand in the case that the transmission grid were unavailable.  Using real historical electric demand, the community learns about the challenges and possibilities that microgrids afford small rural communities with municipal electric utility service.