Feasibility assessment grants will be provided through a competitive solicitation open to municipalities and their public works departments, electric distribution companies, municipal light plants, emergency services departments, owners of critical infrastructure such as hospitals and financial institutions, self-organized groups of commercial building owners, developers or any entity that either owns property within a proposed microgrid or can demonstrate that they represent stakeholders with the capability of developing a multi-user microgrid. MassCEC will support feasibility assessments for prospective community microgrid projects which meet the following criteria:

• Are community, multi-user microgrids (as opposed to single owner or campus-style microgrids);
• Are located in Massachusetts;
• Have the active and engaged support of the local utility (either investor-owned or municipal light plants);
• Demonstrate a strong potential to reduce GHG emissions through the integration of energy efficiency, Combined Heat and Power (“CHP”), renewable energy systems, electric and/or thermal storage technologies, demand management, and other relevant technologies;
• Encompass a public or private critical facility including but not limited to schools, hospitals, shelters, libraries, grocery stores, service (gas) stations, fire/police stations or waste water treatment plants;
• Attract third party investment;
• Highlight Massachusetts-based clean energy/microgrid technology;
• Support the distribution system by addressing capacity concerns, providing black start capability, facilitating renewables integration, or providing other services that are meaningful to the local utility.

Microgrids and Massachusetts: Regulatory Context

In June 2014, the Department of Public Utilities (DPU) issued an order requiring each Massachusetts utility to develop and implement a 10-year grid modernization plan. Grid modernization will provide several benefits to the Commonwealth, including:

• Empowering customers to better manage and reduce electricity costs;
• Enhancing the reliability and resiliency of electricity service in the face of increasingly extreme weather;
• Encouraging innovation and investment in new technology and infrastructure, strengthening the competitive electricity market;
• Addressing climate change and meeting clean energy requirements by integrating more clean and renewable power, demand response, electricity storage, microgrids and electric vehicles, and providing for increased amounts of energy efficiency.

The development of properly-designed and -sited community microgrids in Massachusetts communities can lower customer energy costs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and provide increased resiliency. As such the MA Department of Public Utilities cites microgrids as one strategy among several to meet multiple broadly shared objectives in the Grid Modernization Process Final Report.