An Act To Enable Municipalities Working with Utilities To Establish Microgrids

CONCEPT DRAFT SUMMARY

This bill is a concept draft pursuant to Joint Rule 208.

This bill proposes to establish measures to allow municipalities, working cooperatively with electrical utilities, to create microgrids, which are electricity distribution systems consisting of distributed energy sources, including demand management, storage and generation and loads capable of operating in parallel with, or independently from, the main power grid. This bill would address the following requirements:

1. The generation of electricity from renewable sources into the microgrid;

2. Methods for adding capacity for storage and managing or enabling a utility to manage the charging of the microgrid and the use of the stored power;

3. An appropriate rate for power generation and stored power usage;

4. A credit applicable toward municipal electricity utilization or assignable to organizations or households according to municipal public service decisions; and

5. Contracts with utilities to receive compensation for scheduling or shedding of electrical load in order to lower peak demand and consequently ratepayer prices.