Nationwide

Urban Sustainability Directors Network Resilience Hubs

The Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) connects local government practitioners to accelerate urban sustainability in U.S. and Canadian communities. Member governments of the USDN are leading the way to a sustainable, low-carbon future by developing, adopting, and sharing practices that create equitable and prosperous communities and a healthy environment.

muGrid Analytics, with our partner American Microgrid Solutions, is helping the USDN evaluate the techno-economic feasibility of resilience hubs; community buildings augmented to support residents — typically in the most vulnerable communities — and coordinate resource distribution and services before, during, or after a disaster. USDN Resilience Hubs are also envisioned to be mechanisms for community revitalization and community empowerment.

We are developing a framework which USDN communities can use to assess the viability of a resilience hub project, which includes analyzing the normal operating loads, critical loads, utility rate tariffs, and solar availability. We have used our Redcloud energy modeling platform to evaluate optimal hybrid solar PV, storage, and firm generation options that could be deployed at candidate resilience hub sites. These systems would provide cost savings benefits during the normal grid-connected operations, but also be enabled to island to provide critical backup power during disasters.