Many modern manufacturing plants generate some amount of electricity, either from solar panels on the roof or diesel generators or natural gas turbines. Some are trying to meet sustainability goals, others are working to ensure they'll have the power they need to run production.
Great power not only comes with great responsibility (my apologies to Stan Lee), it comes with managment challenges. Making use of on-site power typically demands a microgrid to cycle betwen power from utilities and the electricity generated by other resources.
As part of IndustryWeek's regular Production Pulse livestream series, we invited several experts to discuss what microgrids are, why they're growing and what to expect in the near term.
Speakers were:
- Jana Gerber, president of Schneider Electric's North American microgrid business
- Rod Walton, managing editor of Microgrid Knowledge, part of IndustryWeek's parent company Endeavor Business Media
- David Paganie, content director for the upcoming Microgrid Knowledge Conference
About the Author
Robert Schoenberger
Editor-in-Chief
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robert-schoenberger-4326b810
Bio: Robert Schoenberger has been writing about manufacturing technology in one form or another since the late 1990s. He began his career in newspapers in South Texas and has worked for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi; The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky; and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland where he spent more than six years as the automotive reporter. In 2014, he launched Today's Motor Vehicles (now EV Manufacturing & Design), a magazine focusing on design and manufacturing topics within the automotive and commercial truck worlds. He joined IndustryWeek in late 2021.