Town center, or TC microgrid, projects in the Northeast have foundered in the face of regulatory, statutory and technical challenges, according to a report written for the New Jersey Bureau of Public Utilities (NJBPU).
“Town center microgrids are one conceptual solution for community emergency-power resilience and reliability needs but face significant public policy-driven development hurdles,” said Marc Pfeiffer, assistant director of Rutgers’ Bloustein Local Government Research Center and the report’s main author. “These challenges are substantial but not necessarily insurmountable.”