SAI-R: A Community-Centered Decision-Making Framework for Microgrid Deployment

Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI) is an NSF Program seeking to stimulate human-centered fundamental and potentially transformative research that strengthens America’s infrastructure. Effective infrastructure provides a strong foundation for socioeconomic vitality and broad quality of life improvement. Strong, reliable, and effective infrastructure spurs private-sector innovation, grows the economy, creates jobs, makes public-sector service provision more efficient, strengthens communities, promotes equal opportunity, protects the natural environment, enhances national security, and fuels American leadership.

To achieve these goals requires expertise from across the science and engineering disciplines. SAI focuses on how knowledge of human reasoning and decision-making, governance, and social and cultural processes enables the building and maintenance of effective infrastructure that improves lives and society and builds on advances in technology and engineering.

The electric power grid is among the most critical of American infrastructures. All citizens and businesses depend on the integrity and resilience of the electric grid. Yet some groups are more vulnerable than others to disruptions caused by extreme events.

Low-income households, senior citizens, people of color, and renters are most likely to be affected by energy insecurity and energy burdens during extreme events. This SAI research project provides equitable and sustainable solutions by designing mobile community microgrids to enhance power system resilience and address critical issues of energy justice and insecurity.

Mobile community microgrids (MCMs) are small-scale electric networks powered by renewable energy resources that can be transported wherever needed. The project optimizes the design and placement of MCMs, balancing the unique needs of low-income households, community acceptance, and government regulations to ensure energy equity and justice and to maximize resilience against extreme events.

The research advances an interdisciplinary collaboration between social science, electric supply, and community planning to improve the resilience and vitality of underserved communities.

Microgrids are commonly developed based on technical and economic metrics. It is challenging to consider social and behavioral factors in the optimization process. This project develops a social psychological optimization method for the design and community acceptance of MCM technology.

A community-centered decision-making framework based on social psychological and behavioral concepts is developed. The focus is on the adoption of MCMs to prioritize the needs of low-income households and enhance power grid resilience. Surveys, discrete choice experiments, behavioral interventions, and community co-design are used to evaluate acceptance of MCMs, estimate willingness to pay, and understand the community’s needs.

The social, behavioral and economic factors are integrated into the design of MCMs using big-data analytics of real-time smart meter data and survey data. The project engages critical stakeholders, including vulnerable local populations and policy decision-makers. Priority is placed on the integration of diversity and a culture of inclusion in the research process and community outreach.

This award is supported by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Sciences, the Directorate for Engineering, and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.