39 Bronzeville Community Microgrid

For powering up urban energy independence and resilience

Microgrids aren’t spectacularly revolutionary. But with climate change increasingly causing the kind of major weather events that can knock out power across a community, a US$25 million microgrid project in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood is sparking renewed interest in the concept. Led by utility ComEd, a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corp, the project is believed to be the first neighborhood-scale microgrid cluster in the United States and stands to influence urban planning around the globe. 

Most microgrids support specific buildings or institutions, but the bigger vision is to create an interconnected web of distributed energy resources that can keep the power flowing during emergencies while also increasing the capacity for renewable energy. And that’s where the Bronzeville Community Microgrid could be a game changer: a ground-breaking example of how two microgrids can work together—allowing them to both island from the grid and share energy during an emergency. Talk about a power couple: The project is heralded as the first time a utility’s microgrid has been linked to a customer microgrid, in this case one at nearby Illinois Institute of Technology. So not only can they disconnect from and reconnect to Chicago’s citywide grid at will, they can transfer power to keep everyone in service.

With that kind of potential, the six-year project has attracted a slew of supporters, including the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), University of Denver, Argonne National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Quanta Technology and German energy giant Siemens.

The DoE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office has a keen interest in discovering how microgrids can increase energy security while integrating clean energy, and it awarded the Bronzeville project a US$4 million grant to do just that. To meet demand, the microgrid relies on battery energy storage and a solar installation atop a neighborhood public housing development. The big question: Could the Bronzeville microgrid disconnect from the main power grid, then rely on its own resources and later reconnect to the main grid—all without any service interruptions?

In December 2021, it passed the test. But to reach that point, the team had to overcome not just significant technical hurdles, but also resistance from community and environmental stakeholders concerned about costs for the historically Black community and the initial emphasis on fossil-fueled generators. 

To help address those concerns, ComEd’s team worked with community leaders and residents. The goal was to not just convey the purpose of the project, but also ensure it meets the actual needs of those who live and work in the neighborhood, while also adding more renewable sources. As part of that collaboration, the team found a creative way to obscure the project’s utility-scale battery storage facility, which had been plunked down in the middle of a residential block: a 120-foot (36-meter) mural celebrating prominent Black innovators from Chicago. 

Slated to be fully functioning by 2023, the Bronzeville Community Microgrid will provide power for more than 1,000 residences, businesses and public institutions. But it could have broad implications for the energy industry at large, with ComEd SVP Michelle Blaise calling it “a laboratory of what the future might look like.”