Pandemic response and energy security are both emergency preparedness issues leading us toward a more distributed architecture.

A client recently asked the question, “How is COVID-19 going to affect the energy industry?”

Initially, it may not seem like a virus and energy resources are connected.

Are we afraid that the power is going to go out when we have a pandemic? No, not at first. Yet, the pandemic can affect the grid considerably since it changes the way people consume energy.

“Flattening the curve” is not a new concept. In fact, it’s something that we in the energy industry work on every single day.

Surely you are no stranger to the term “flatten the curve,” embedded in our lexicon by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, I’ve been struck by the similarities between reducing the risk of spreading disease and what we at muGrid do every day: mitigating energy costs.

muGrid CTO Dr. Travis Simpkins will be speaking at the Critical Power Expo on Thursday, September 13, 2018 at 2 PM. His talk Optimizing Battery Sizing & Dispatching to Maximize the Economic Return of Grid-Connected Microgrids is part of the Critical Power Tech forum, and is free to attend.

The Critical Power Expo is part of The Battery Show conference running from September 11-13, 2018 at the Suburban Showcase in Novi, Michigan. It is one of the premier conferences for backup power, microgrids, and electric vehicles and drew over 5,000 attendees last year.

If you’re interested in power resiliency, you’ll want to check out this upcoming Clean Energy Group webinar featuring muGrid Analytics’ own Dr. Travis Simpkins along with our partner Geoff Oxnam of American Microgrid Solutions talking real projects, real economics, and real tradeoffs.