Community Microgrid Investment Planning: A Conceptual Framework

From a long-term investment point of view, community microgrid planning and operation will need to ensure resource allocation efficiency, facilitated by appropriate revenue flows, to achieve optimum outcomes for all stakeholders including the community, investors and the providers. Drawing insights and experience from traditional electricity sector planning and infrastructure planning in general, this paper discusses a number of strategic options in microgrid market design, including monopolistic model, customer cooperation model and prosumer competition model, and assesses their potential suitability to deliver such outcomes. This provides a conceptual framework for the evaluation of the available strategic options and the identification of challenges in community microgrid investment planning, that can guide communities, public and private investors looking into achieving more efficient and more reliable electricity supply through community microgrids or clean energy.