Wildfires have become increasingly frequent due to climate change, with record occurrences in areas not historically prone to them. In California, wildfires and regional power shutoffs have cost billions and taken lives. For some 46 million Americans living next to forests – at what scientists call the “wildland-urban interface” (WUI) – the risks of wildfire can be especially acute.
Microgrids can build resilience in vulnerable communities. By using small-scale, local energy sources and disconnecting from regional grids during emergencies, they can deliver essential services to keep homes and communities safe. But conventional microgrids with diesel generators are both too expensive and too polluting to be viable at scale.
An international team led by research scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that clean energy microgrids offer a better and cheaper solution for protecting California communities from wildfire-related outages, compared to conventional microgrids. These systems, which primarily rely on solar and batteries, can be built at a cost well below what households typically pay for electricity and can reduce the impact of power outages (by minimizing public safety power shutdown time) by a factor of up to 30.
