Welcome, Kay Aikin, to the MRC Board of Advisors

The MRC is thrilled to welcome Kay Aikin, Founder/Chief Product Officer of Dynamic Grid and highly respected member of the microgrid community, as our newest board advisor. We sat down with Kay recently to learn more about the role she sees microgrids playing in the energy transition and how we can further their adoption quicker.

What role can microgrids play in supporting the energy transition?

Microgrids are a critical aspect of the energy transition by crystallizing locally distributed power into controllable nodes that benefit customers and the greater grid. 

Why are microgrids unique relative to DERs overall and how important are they to a robust, reliable and resilient grid of the future?

Microgrids are a very important part of local resilience because they provide superior resource allocation that is locally responsive to multiple client needs. 

At a very high-level, what policy changes or tools can or should be adopted to really unlock microgrids?

New regulatory frameworks that value microgrids for performance-based grid services they can provide are urgent for expanding opportunities within the marketplace. Without developing these new performance-based regulatory constructs, many important energy transition goals will be hard to realize – not just microgrids but all DERs will be undervalued relative to the benefits they provide to the grid and the communities that they support.