The Houston Advanced Research Center, is developing an innovative feasibility analysis tool to speed up the identification of business opportunities based on district energy and community microgrids by non-technical users. The project is funded by the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office (Award: DE-FOA-0001980).This session will discuss the current trends and challenges in district energy and community microgrids planning, introduce the innovative approach this (publicly available and free) tool wants to bring to the feasibility analyses of community energy systems, and present the results of the survey that kicked off the design process in December 2020 (participated by IDEA members, among other industry associations
Carlos Gamarra, Senior Research Scientist, Clean Energy Technology, Houston Advanced Research Center