The City of Houston is faced with a number of urgent challenges.
Houston - known as the Energy Capital of the World - is simultaneously trying to spearhead energy transition, advance innovation, and achieve net zero emissions goals as part of the City’s Climate Action Plan.
There is also a renewed focus on the urban core centers of Houston as the city continues to grow and attract younger workers.
Meanwhile, climate events are increasing annually making energy reliability and resiliency more important than ever. In 2008, Hurricane Ike led to 2.1 million CenterPoint customers losing their power.
Power outages due to climate events, like those experienced due to the freezing temperatures of Winter Storm Uri in 2021, are growing increasingly costly to the City of Houston and local businesses.
Making progress towards achieving the Climate Action Plan goals must be accomplished in an equitable, just, and sustainable way, for the sake of current and future generations.
Why InnoGrid?
Houston needs an innovative business model that brings a cost-effective first of its kind microgrid to the City of Houston in an equitable, resilient, and sustainable way. Other cities have developed microgrids to proactively mitigate the physical and economic risks caused by power outages resulting from climate events. Houston can become the leader in resilient urban clean energy microgrid development and deployments on its way to becoming the New Energy Capital of the World.
InnoGrid positions Houston as the leader in resilient, urban microgrid technology.
InnoGrid will use a variety of existing and proven renewable energy sources and storage technologies including:
- Wind, Solar, Geothermal--both Geothermal Heat Pump (GHP) and Advanced Geothermal Systems (AGS Closed-Loop)
- Battery, Kinetic, Compressed Air (CAES), and Geomechanical Pumped Storage
InnoGrid will provide opportunities to test new sources and storage technologies being developed within the InnoGrid’s footprint at places like Greentown Labs Houston and The Ion, both indicating interest to potentially co-anchor the microgrid.
InnoGrid will be developed amongst an ideal mix of High-Density Residential, Commercial/Industrial, Transportation, and Emergency Service Providers with which to demonstrate microgrid technology including:
- Downtown CBD
- High-Tech industry
- Professional Sports Facilities
- Light Rail
- Museum District
- Hotels and other Convention/Tourism areas
- Government Offices
- Fire & Police Services
- Emergency Shelters
Innogrid will also be the first neighborhood microgrid to incorporate smart, consumer-facing dashboards and immersive gamification.
More importantly, if a storm hits, the Innovation Corridor’s critical facilities will be able to rely on a clean energy microgrid for electricity.
The Houston InnoGrid will have a far-reaching impact for transitioning Houston as the New Energy Capital of the World and as a Working Lab for Microgrid Research and Innovation the world over.
Credits:
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