Educating students as a means to help people in a low income community live in a DC microgrid laboratory

A microgrid is defined by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as “a group of interconnected loads and distributed energy resources (DERs) with clearly defined electrical boundaries that acts as a single controllable entity with respect to the electric utility grid.” Today 1.4 billion people in the world have no access to electricity and a billion more only have limited access to unreliable electricity. It is a daunting global challenge to provide universal access to modern electricity services for the poor population. In the United States, the issue is more related to affordability than availability of electricity. Currently the wealthy and well educated U.S. population is increasingly embracing renewable energy and smart solutions such as demand response or local energy storage to reduce both carbon emission and electricity bills simultaneously. The low-income households, which could also participate in and benefit from the energy paradigm shift, are largely left out due to the high initial investment barrier and lack of education and exposure to the new technology. This project focuses on educating high school students in a community in a low income neighborhood in Milwaukee. The students will be learning about the basics of a Microgrid and will learn about the DC Microgrid in their community which includes Solar energy, storage and smart DC loads in full detail. The students will be educated and eventually live in these smart homes which are a part of the community DC Microgrid. This paper proposes a plan of action educate the students to achieve that objective.