A learning opportunity and feedback session with the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA)

The regulatory and market landscapes for Rooftop PV, Battery Storage and EVs are quickly changing locally and nationally as they continue to be integrated into development projects. City departments and State agencies are spearheading policies to support individual technologies (i.e., solar incentives, BTD’s EV Policy). However, many of these technologies are being incentivized as individual assets, without keeping in mind a potential future where they are integrated with each other into microgrids.

There is an opportunity to assess low-cost “microgrid-ready” design at the building and development site scale, to be ready to integrate these assets with each other. “Microgrid-ready” design would make sure we can realize the benefits of microgrids in the future, but avoid costly retrofits.

The Boston Smart Utilities Program, a multi-departmental initiative led by the BPDA, is planning to release a Request For Information (RFI) to solicit ideas from microgrid technical experts for what is necessary to make buildings “microgrid-ready.”

Ahead of the release of this RFI, the Boston Smart Utilities team wants to host a high-level conversation with BSA members interested in this topic to provide initial comments/reactions to the “microgrid-ready” design vision. The session will also include a brief overview of the policy frameworks that other jurisdictions are taking to promote greater microgrid deployment and some potential regulatory pathways that Massachusetts could take.

Presenters

Manuel Esquivel
Senior Infrastructure & Energy Planner at the Boston Planning & Development Agency
Manager of the Boston Smart Utilities Program

Rees Sweeney-Taylor
Master in Public Policy candidate at the Harvard Kennedy School
Energy and Climate Summer Fellow at the MA Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs conducting research on microgrid regulations