Microgrid Communications & Controls with Nate Mills of American Microgrid Solutions and Michael Goldbach of New Sun Road
American Microgrid Solutions (AMS), New Sun Road, and Mayfield Renewables work together on microgrid design for value stacking, project optimization, and high performance. They met to discuss and highlight the importance of system architecture, collaboration, and engineering to driving the transition from the “old grid” to the “new grid.”
Mayfield Dispatches Episode 09 – February 2025
Hosted by Robert Cross of Outfit and Lucas Miller of Mayfield Renewables (Click here to view the video)
Founded in 2016, AMS focuses on building resilient energy solutions, particularly in low-income and rural areas, ensuring reliable power for critical infrastructure. AMS helps clients navigate the entire process, from system design to installation and long-term operation, despite the challenges of aging buildings, multiple stakeholders, and limited resources.
Founded in 2014, New Sun Road is a Public Benefit Corporation with a mission to accelerate renewable energy deployment, particularly in remote and underserved communities. With over 1500 systems on their platform in over 20 countries, New Sun Road specializes in managing power and connectivity in challenging environments, ensuring reliable telemetry, remote control, and maintenance planning for sites that are difficult and costly to access.
Driving the Transition from the “Old Grid” to the “New Grid”
Progressing from the “old grid” to the “new grid” revolves around shifting from a centralized, utility-owned power system to a more decentralized, distributed energy model. The old grid follows a hub-and-spoke design, limited by transmission and distribution capacity, whereas the new grid integrates distributed energy resources (DERs) like microgrids and virtual power plants (VPPs) to optimize energy use and reduce reliance on large-scale power plants.
The key is standardization—streamlining permitting, interconnection, and technical requirements to enable large-scale deployment of microgrids. Regulatory uncertainty, rather than technical limitations, is the primary challenge hindering the expansion of thousands of microgrids. Clear, consistent rules would allow manufacturers and developers to scale solutions efficiently.
VPPs are emerging as a viable model, with utilities showing interest in leveraging DERs for grid relief. Additionally, bidirectional EV charging is progressing but faces regulatory hurdles due to the need for the automotive and utility industries to align on communication protocols and infrastructure.
This transition is critically enabled by integrated communications and controls.
Microgrid Controls at a Glance
Read: What is a Microgrid?
Microgrid systems’ architecture and control mechanisms include energy sources (utility grid, generators, solar panels, batteries) and load management strategies to ensure performance for economic optimization and resilience during power outages.
Typical Microgrid System Overview - Single-line Diagram
- Utility grid (main power source).
- Generator with an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS).
- Solar PV and Energy Storage System (ESS).
- Load distribution through subpanels.
- Stellar Edge™ controller as the site-level coordinator
New Sun Road’s Stellar platform is the Energy Management System (EMS)
In on-grid mode, Stellar optimizes energy use by tracking building loads, rate schedules, and dispatching battery/solar power accordingly.
In off-grid mode (during outages), the utility contactor opens, isolating the system. The battery switches from grid-following to grid-forming, stabilizing voltage and frequency. If solar generation is insufficient, the battery discharges until a threshold is reached. At low battery charge, the generator starts, recharges the battery, and maintains load supply. The Stellar platform continues to manage this cycle until grid power returns.
Control System Considerations
Microgrid control and energy management systems (EMS) are designed with multi-level controls, where different components—such as batteries, inverters, and generators—operate with their own control logic. Fail-safe mechanisms automatically trigger shutdowns if communication between components is lost, preventing unsafe operation. Manual backups can be integrated for critical loads, ensuring continued operation even during a system failure.
System Design and Microgrid Control involves balancing trade-offs, including economic optimization versus resilience, system flexibility versus complexity, and endurance versus cost. Expert collaboration is essential, ensuring that each microgrid meets client-specific needs while striking the right balance between backup power, cost, and long-term reliability.
Load Prioritization in microgrid design is crucial for maintaining power to critical systems like IT infrastructure, medical equipment, and elevators. Non-essential loads, such as HVAC systems and EV chargers, can be shed to conserve energy when necessary. Clients must balance resilience and cost by considering how long they need backup power and the overall affordability of the system. The Stellar Edge™ controller provides flexibility to reconfigure load priorities over time, ensuring adaptability without excessive complexity.
The Stellar Edge™ acts as a site-level optimizer, making strategic decisions on energy dispatch while relying on inverters for real-time load response. The Edge gathers data from sensors, smart equipment, and power sources, transmitting data to the Stellar Microgrid OS™ cloud platform. Users can observe system performance through real-time power flow diagrams and manage energy distribution both locally and remotely.
Cloud Integration and fleet management by Stellar Microgrid OS™ is enabled by AI-powered analytics, performance tracking, and predictive maintenance to optimize efficiency. It also supports fleet management, allowing operators to monitor and control multiple microgrids from a network operations center (NOC). This centralized data provides insights into system health, helps identify issues, and allows for the informed dispatch of field technicians when necessary. The platform is highly valued for its user-friendly dashboards, task management capabilities, and deep integration with third-party systems.
Case Study Example: EMS Managed Distribution within a Microgrid
A grid-tied microgrid, powered by battery storage was designed to achieve two key performance goals:
- Maintaining battery resilience by keeping the state of charge at 95% for backup power, and
- Limiting grid import to 80 units kW to reduce demand charges.
In the morning, the battery discharges to meet early load demand, causing the state of charge (SOC) of the battery to drop to 50%. In the afternoon, solar power generation increases, allowing the battery to recharge while ensuring grid consumption remains below the 80-unit target, minimizing demand charges. In the late afternoon, the controller manages the recharging process using excess solar energy and limited grid power, bringing the battery charge back to 95%.
By dynamically balancing battery usage, solar energy, and grid consumption, the energy management system (EMS) optimizes efficiency and maximizes cost savings while maintaining resilience and reliability in energy management.
Key Takeaways to Accelerate the Deployment of Decentralized Power
- Define Performance Goals and Consider Trade-offs
Focus areas include energy savings, resilience, load shifting, demand charge reduction, operations and maintenance. - Seamless Internal Communications
Integration of your microgrid controller with different OEM systems and devices requires planning. Communication protocols and physical connections need to be defined at the engineering level and included as part of the project design. - External Project Considerations
Address connectivity challenges early (e.g., Ethernet access, cellular modems, Wi-Fi availability). - Collaboration with Trusted Partners
Long-term, trusted relationships like American Microgrid Solutions, New Sun Road, and Mayfield Renewables enable process standardization and leverage lessons learned for effective and efficient project execution.
What is a Public Benefit Corporation P.B.C.?
Founded in 2014, New Sun Road is a public benefit company with a mission to accelerate renewable energy deployment, particularly in remote and underserved communities.
A Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) is a business entity that balances profit-making with a social or environmental mission. Unlike traditional corporations, which prioritize maximizing shareholder value, our leadership has a dual responsibility: fulfilling its mission while maintaining financial sustainability. This allows New Sun Road to make decisions that align with its purpose, even when those choices are not the most profit-maximizing.
Being a PBC allows us to remain committed to expanding renewable energy access while making strategic decisions, such as addressing funding cuts to the USAID program in Guatemala.