Microgrid in a box: A plug-and-play microgrid will make rooftop solar grid-friendly

Abstract

A few years ago, I found A myself in the laundry room of a house in Austin, Texas, looking at some disturbing electrical signals on an oscilloscope. In my capacity as chief technology officer for the nonprofit clean-energy-research firm Pecan Street, examining the effect on the grid of homes with rooftop photovoltaics is my job. But what I was seeing that day in the house's connection to the grid sparked an idea. "If I added energy storage to this house, I could fix this," I remember saying.