Solar Housing Linked to Bronzeville Microgrid Provides Social Justice, Technology Research

June 14, 2019 By Lisa Cohn, https://microgridknowledge.com/bronzeville-microgrid-social-justice-solar

Chicago’s Bronzeville microgrid project is demonstrating the social justice benefits of decentralized energy with the completion this month of solar installations on 660 residential units in the Dearborn Homes Community.

The project, a partnership of Exelon subsidiary Commonwealth Edison (ComEd), developer VLV Development and the Chicago Housing Authority, also provides numerous learning opportunities for ComEd about using solar, storage, inverters and controllers in microgrids, said Aleksi Paaso, director, distribution planning, smart grid and innovation at ComEd. The project shows how solar-plus- storage can be a controllable resource for a microgrid.

The much-watched Bronzeville microgrid is a ComEd project that tests the concept of microgrid clusters, or a ‘grid of microgrids.’