Electric microgrid.

• Author: Kojro, Chester A.
• Position: Readers' Forum - Letter to the editor

In reference to the July 2011 article, "High-Tech Weapon Makers Set Sights on 'Smart Microgrid' Market," I see that the bureaucracy has already lost sight of the obvious and is befuddling itself into foolish wastefulness in the name of green energy. Having conflated power generation, power consumption, and power distribution together with green energy and renewables, this is now yet another ill-defined overarching "system of systems" acquisition reminiscent of the Army's failed Future Combat Systems, only on a far grander scale.

At the lowest level, there are individual generators. In a variety of sizes and power, they provide electricity to power individual or small clusters of equipment. Sized for the maximum load typically needed, they in fact do waste energy when they generate more than needed when some component systems are off line. If all the lights but one are off at night, the generator is still running. Here is where hybrid generator systems make sense although their added weight and complexity caused by the batteries and power management architecture must be considered. Hybrid generators are definitely the answer in semi-permanent or permanent settings.

Smart microgrid technology also implies smart usage, coordinated against peak and off-peak loads. That's great at installations that purchase power from the grid as it averages out usage and allows for the purchase of power at lower rates, where available. As mentioned in the article, there is an added security risk since the computerized monitoring and control network is itself vulnerable to cyber as well as physical attack and is something to be considered.

Smart power distribution at small scale, especially if with hybrid generators, also makes sense. Instead of running two generators on separate loops, each at one-third load, you can tie them together and temporarily shut one down completely while only the other runs, and at only two-thirds load.

Where things get stupid is when the discussion shifts to smart grids as a source of secure power to an installation. Imagine a stateside installation that encounters occasional power outages, now determined by pundits as a "security issue."

More than likely, the base is already wired much like a city. There are one or more power stations from where high voltage lines run across to power substations, from where distribution lines lead to housing areas and facilities, where transformers drop the voltage and feed it to the individual...