“DC Lighting is the Key to Optimized Microgrid Solutions” (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)
DC lighting can add sustainable value to building power infrastructures and microgrids to empower grid resiliency & optimize the value of renewables. Fundamentally, a DC lighting grid “Direct-Coupled” (DC-to-DC) with renewable power (solar/battery storage) unlocks optimized grid resilient strategies for lighting security, power cost control, and carbon reduction.
When specified as the primary load beneficiary of the power produced by renewables, the DC lighting grid catalyzes load sharing among the renewable power sources, providing benefits that directly support & impact key business value objectives:
Resiliency & Predictability
- Optimizing load management empowers reliability & security
- Simple measurement & calculation of system Payback/ROI (equal to the DC lighting off-set of AC utility power)
Sustainability
- Offset of conventional utility generation minimizes conventional power needs
- Renewable lighting paradigm fundamentally provides sustainability
Control & Independence
- Self generation subrogates the electric load from the utility
- ”Direct-Coupling” to renewables catalyzes lighting power cost control
