“We focus on being great for the PEOPLE and PLANET.”

For a long time, microgrids and nanogrids were heralded for their ability to provide power locally when the grid goes down. Now, more and more, they win friends because of their intelligent usefulness. Microgrids and nanogrids — as well as virtual power plants — are increasingly employed to undertake sophisticated management of energy resources beyond their footprint. They serve not just as local energy, but as grid resources.

Given the preceding, we’re delighted to present DR Microgrid

DR Microgrid protects businesses from blackouts and rising utility costs creating Microgrids! The company takes advantage of specialized incentives and revenue through demand response and aggregates its customer base to sell energy back to the grid. It has combined Reduction, Generation, and Over-sized battery storage systems, creating resilience and energy independence. DR Microgrid operates within utility incentive programs designed to cut demand charges. The firm is focused on the SMB market specializing in manufacturing, industrial, school, hospital, municipal, retail, hospitality and hotel, and multifamily buildings.

The company was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in Santa Ana, California.

In conversation with AJ Perkins, President DR Microgrid

What was the reason behind the genesis of DR Microgrid?

In September of 2018, Jigar Shah told me that he needed help building microgrids because the utilities were going to shut off the grid up to 30 times in 2019. He said that his company, Generate Capital was willing to pay for all of these microgrids to be installed to help protect businesses from these Public Safety Power Shutoffs. We put together a Microgrid solution that could be easy to understand, finance and deploy with a focus on the Small-Mid Size Business (SMB) market.

In May 2019, we attended Microgrid Knowledge Conference 2019 in San Diego, where it was evident that there was a big need for a residential solution to help protect families against the growing Public Safety Power Shutoffs problem that would be affecting the state of California in the upcoming months. We designed this solution for solar installers around the country to integrate a microgrid/nanogrid into an existing solar system with an upcoming white paper to follow.

In this modern business world, what do you exactly mean by “A Smart Company”?

As the market and needs began to take shape, we realized that we are nimble and intuitive and decided to be in front of the market that would be created. We saw that market boundaries were blurred and decided to change the industry structure, taking a page from W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy. We created a business environment with the pursuit of differentiation and efficiency (lower cost) to open up a new market space and create demand without competition.

What challenges did you face in your initial start? What can your peers learn from it?

We expected organic growth as we went to the market, but the need was so great that we were concerned that our success could be our downfall. We needed capital to finance projects and the company’s growth and it continued to grow at an astounding pace. We needed to reassess our strategy and began putting the financial stability of our company at the forefront and began crafting a more deliberate approach to customer acquisition.

As this began to solidify, our new problem was, “the market and opportunity were too big, and we need help”. Businesses needed our solution and we couldn’t build our team fast enough. We decided to create more strategic partnerships. We get our solution out, our partner gives their customers a new resilient system and the customer gets what they need from the people they are familiar with.

Is your company a ‘leader’ or a ‘follower’? Do you formulate your own core values?

We are a leader that has learned from many of the greats. In designing DR Microgrid, we saw an opportunity to take a complex microgrid, simplify it and created a standardized solution that can be easy to finance and easy to deploy in scale. We then took this repeatable solution and created a unique way to patent our process.

We have built this company with the triple bottom line as the focus of how we serve the people and grow our company:

• We commit to doing our best work for the PEOPLE, those on our team, our partners and those we serve.
• We commit to protecting the PLANET with the best products, technologies, and resources available.
• We know that if we succeed in the first 2 P’s, we will inevitably increase PROFITS, so we focus on being great for the PEOPLE and PLANET.


What are the factors that make your brand one of the SMARTEST and why?

The Latin term “Nanos gigantum humeris insidentes” expresses the meaning of “discovering truth by building on previous discoveries”. All progress begins with the truth and we have taken previous discoveries that have traditionally been complex and complicated and we have created a standardized design. With this standard microgrid design, we are able to reduce design and construction costs and can build microgrids that are 30% cheaper and installed and operating in half the time of a “piecemeal” or non-standardized solution.

Do you have any new products ready to be launched?

Customers have proven over and over again that they aren’t particularly interested in paying cash for solar installations for their roofs and don’t want to go to the work of keeping track of energy assets like solar or energy storage in the home. This opens up the potential for a larger list of energy-as-a-service offerings for solar for customers. Pair solar with energy storage, demand response, and EV charging and it may be the start of a real transition to renewable energy for millions of people.

One of the stealth technologies that was unveiled at the recent Solar Power International trade show in Salt Lake City a few weeks ago is the plug-and-play solar+storage+nanogrid solution from start-up DR Microgrid, of Santa Ana, CA. It looks like a killer app because it is the only other system of its kind on the US market except that of Sonnen, which is more expensive, says DR Microgrid President AJ Perkins.

The market reception for the technology on an installer level is huge: the company received over 400 phone calls from installers seeking to add the tech to their portfolio of offerings, Perkins says. He has also been approached by entities in eight other countries, he adds.

Nanogrids are residential or commercial-scale microgrids designed for a single home or building, which typically do not involve more than 100 kilowatts of renewable generation. The beauty of the nanogrid is that if you are subject to utility power outages — like many of us in California — the system can “island” your home or building, so that power continues even if the grid is down.

The power comes from the battery component of the system, for which DR Microgrid provides a minimum of 20 kW per hour, expandable up to 60 kW/h for heavy users, like those with an EV charging station included in the system.

The system can operate with either lithium-ion or lithium-iron-phosphate (Li-FePO4) batteries that have a greater tolerance for heat and are less prone to catch fire than the standard lithium-ion type. DR Microgrid is packaging its own batteries under the brand Instant On, with a standard 20-year warranty. At the end of the warranty period, the batteries are expected to continue to operate at about an 80% charge level, Perkins notes. The warranty includes the expected change-out of the batteries after about 10 years.

The system also includes smart plugs that are used with major appliances or other equipment, which communicate to the software controller. Machine learning and artificial intelligence add to the system, creating a platform that can proactively help customers modify their electricity usage to minimize utility bills.

The software also has a built-in capability to sell energy back to the utility for a profit, supporting the grid during times of demand stress.
The software was developed by CarbonTRACK, in Melbourne, and is being marketed in the United States by Naak. The system has already been installed in some 22,000 homes in New Zealand, according to Perkins. As such it could represent the largest such network in the world, since Sonnen only claims some 10,000 homes in its European network, centered in Germany.

The software already has three patents and the company is expanding its coverage around the world aggressively, Perkins notes.

The cost of the DR Microgrid product for home use is about $25,000, although it all depends on size and other configurations. An alternative to the outright purchase of the tech is a monthly rental of the system as a service, at about 10% of the current electricity utility bill, Perkins estimates. The company may offer financing for system purchases, with an interest rate as low as 6%. For comparison, Sonoma County offers 7% solar financing, but after middle-men add their markups, the rate can come closer to 9%. Sonoma was the first California county-operated Property Assessed Clean Energy lender (PACE).

The company is also willing to, and prefers to, install solar at the same time as it installs the microgrid or nanogrid tech. However, retrofitting the tech to a home or business with existing solar is still a plug-and-play operation, Perkins says. One big difference between a retrofit and an all-in install is that the inverter needed for storage must operate in two directions. Standalone solar systems traditionally have been installed with one-way inverters, so retrofitting storage requires the addition of two-way capability.

Nanogrids and microgrids perform a variety of cost-saving functions including peak-shaving, time-of-use charge avoidance, commercial demand charges (for volume of use), among others. The software also can unite various users so that the microgrid acts as a single entity in transacting with the utility, taking advantage of peak hour demand times when utilities sometimes pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per kilowatt to keep the grid up to demand.

DR Microgrid already has a private investor that brought in $100 million to the startup’s war chest. The company has not had to turn to venture capital, which has pulled the plug on many promising solar startups over the years. Among other strategic partners, Lockheed Martin Energy is a trade ally, Perkins notes. Lockheed targets commercial and industrial battery storage systems, offering financing.

Microgrids As An Energy Solution for Cannabis

For cannabis growers in California – particularly in the rapidly expanding legal indoor market – there are few concerns as constant and costly as energy. Issues with capacity and access have become routine, as companies grow and the state’s overburdened grid struggles to keep up with demand, and it’s own managerial shortcomings. DR Micrgogrid is a Southern California based utility provider, originally built to adapt to the massive and changing energy needs of the state’s many industries, including the gigantic agriculture market; California agriculture generated over $100 billion in economic activity in 2018. DR Microgrid has now turned their attention and solutions to cannabis, in a moment of increasingly urgent need for the budding but rapidly growing industry.

A ‘microgrid’ is pretty much what it sounds like; an independent ‘energy island’, based on traditional and renewable energy sources, that allows the customer to exist outside of the high costs, inefficient customer care, and breaches in trust and service that the large utility providers often come along with. When they were approached — initially by Adam Meyn of Cannatech Network — about the major energy issues and costs specifically faced by the growing cannabis industry, they recognized both a need and an opportunity. Cannabis, Hemp, and Controlled Environment Agriculture is the nation’s fastest-growing agriculture sector. The modern growing process has kept the cannabis industry a substantial energy consumer, and the utilities have struggled to provide adequate power to support its growth. This problem is compounded for facilities in remote areas, where infrastructure wasn’t designed to supply the energy capacity needed for growers.

DR Microgrid provides power, protection, and proper profile through the building of microgrids, addressing what they have identified as three main areas of concern for the industry:

Not Enough Power – Facilities are being denied interconnection and service upgrade requests, and often made to wait several months for service from the Utility – forcing businesses to put operations on hold.

Inconsistent Power – Facilities are experiencing blackouts and brownouts (in the past year more often from temporary reductions in system voltage or total system capacity) have had lights, computers, and other electronic devices ruined – causing disruption and sometimes loss of production.

Power Profile – Cities in California are now proposing restrictions on cannabis growers after backlash from residential consumers facing rising electricity bills, and the state potentially missing its energy reduction goals – blamed by many at least partially on the high energy use typically required for indoor grows.

The DR Microgrid combines generation from solar, fuel cells, CHP, and natural gas generators, along with energy storage and advanced controls. These all combine to give the facility the ability to “island” itself from the grid when blackouts and brownouts occur, when rates are the highest, or when supporting the grid network via demand response. “We have been called in to provide support to facilities for various reasons surrounding these three areas of concern,” says DR Microgrid president AJ Perkins. He also gives some background on the needs that introduced him and DR Microgrid to the cannabis market and its specific – and urgent – energy needs. “Cannatech Network brought us in to help a high profile facility that was only able to get 2500 amps but needed 3500. We see many facilities that need an extra 200-400 amps and are waiting an average of 15 months to get the power they need. We learned of a facility that was running their diesel generator every day to supplement their power, and the California Air Resources Board came and removed their generator. We are able to come in with a microgrid and give them a specially designed system that can be installed and commissioned quicker, reducing their cost of delay.” This highlights another of the uniquely needed services of this new agricultural wave: reducing the time it takes to get energy needs met, and more efficiently beginning or continuing operations. One point of frustration for many cannabis growers; large utility companies often do not trust that cultivators will be in business long enough to warrant an expedited upgrade, and the waitlists have grown accordingly. DR Microgrid is here to help, and can provide increased amperage within months instead of years.

Indoor and Outdoor: DR Microgrid For Safety and Efficiency

The DR Microgrid solution is not just for indoor grows and facilities, however, as AJ further elaborates. “We have a few of these same customers that are at the end of lines and although blackouts were not prevalent for them (at the time), the fluctuation of power had caused their lights to explode causing a fire in one of the grow rooms and destroying their crop with fire and smoke.” DR Microgid provides stabilization from both reductions and surges that can otherwise endanger a crop or operation. This scenario isn’t just hypothetical, either; a recent Northern California emergency power outage by PG&E threatened thousands of cannabis farms and indoor grows.

Another area of concern is the state-mandated electronic tracking system needed to allow transporters and distributors to continue to operate when power is out. With a microgrid, they are now able to have consistent, reliable energy that would allow for normal operations for hours or days at a time.
Sometimes just keeping up with trends in energy efficiency is enough to get growers saving energy and reducing strain on the grid. “We had one customer that wanted a microgrid to help reduce their usage specifically because he wanted to ‘look like his neighbor.’ He said that he knew that his power bill was many times higher than other businesses in his area, and he also didn’t want to stick out like a sore thumb.” For customers such as this, who are not prepared for the unexpected, or are in need of more energy independence, there are lower-cost solutions as well. “Rather than doing a full facility offset, he chose to go with a microgrid that would reduce his utility costs by 60% and protect just essential loads. In the event of a power outage, his crops and main electrical equipment would still operate, protecting his business.”

The California wildfire season has become more of a year-round phenomenon, and public safety power outages are happening more frequently, especially toward the end of the calendar year when the bulk of this year’s multi-billion dollar crop is coming in from the field for processing and drying. Maintaining temperature and humidity control is also just as crucial to these facilities, and resiliency is now at a premium. An indoor facility experiencing two days of no indoor light could ruin an entire crop.

In a state and industry committed to the cleanest and most efficient supplier of energy needs available, microgrids provide energy independence. They are an “energy insurance policy,” used for emergencies and everyday operations alike. Through combining on-site power generation, battery storage with intelligent controls that “island” from the grid, critical equipment can still operate during power outages. DR Microgrid is helping create the path to a resilient, reliable, and cleaner energy footprint for our businesses, our communities, and our grid.