Powering Progress: The Microgrid Movement with Jeremy Bruce

In this illuminating episode of 'Powering Progress,' host Al Marschke sits down with Jeremy Bruce, the dynamic Chief Executive Officer at Saga Companies, to explore the burgeoning world of microgrids. As these self-sufficient energy systems proliferate across business communities and residential areas, Jeremy shares his valuable insights on how microgrids are revolutionizing the way we think about power distribution and energy resilience. Listen in as they discuss the environmental, economic, and social impacts of microgrid adoption and how Saga Companies is leading the charge in integrating these systems into the fabric of local communities. Whether you're an energy enthusiast, a business owner, or just someone curious about the future of sustainable power, this conversation will shed light on the benefits and challenges of a microgrid-powered society. Join us to discover how microgrids could transform your community and fuel a cleaner, more reliable energy future.

Transcript

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;18;06
Speaker 1
Welcome to another episode of Saga Media podcast, and it's Jeremy and I today, the actual founders of this particular podcast. We're teaming up because Jeremy happens to have a background in microgrids and energy, and I thought it would be good to dig in to a little bit about micro grids and what they are, how they impact all of us.

00;00;18;06 - 00;00;23;12
Speaker 1
And so I have a couple of questions for Jeremy, but tell me a little bit about your background, how you're connected with micro grids.

00;00;23;15 - 00;00;50;01
Speaker 2
So one of my companies, we are energy developers and we developed industrial commercial sites a number of years back as we were going through and sourcing out projects and we were looking at opportunities, we saw that there was a need for large scale power that wasn't available from the public utility and or would take a long time for that power to be able to be delivered to a specific site for an end user.

00;00;50;01 - 00;01;15;04
Speaker 2
And user could be a technology park with data centers, crypto mining or heavy using energy manufacturers distribution. You know, like many steel mills and other would be like semiconductor. You've we've dealt with the chip shortage in recent years. So what we've we've uncovered is as we're developing this out, you know, about ten years ago, a lot of coal fired power plants were decommissioned.

00;01;15;07 - 00;01;36;08
Speaker 2
New gas fired power plants are starting to become minimal. There's a transition shift between large scale solar and renewables and wind. And there's a backlog of new projects because of that transition. So we uncovered that we needed to be you know, we need to be able to provide energy or these companies aren't going to come over. We develop these sites.

00;01;36;08 - 00;01;57;19
Speaker 2
They're just not going to be there. Our background, obviously, we've been in the natural gas industry for quite some time. And so having that that background of natural gas development, having construction, you know, my business, my other business partner is affiliated with me in this. He's got 65 years of heavy construction under his belt. So they've done power plants, steel mills.

00;01;57;22 - 00;02;18;14
Speaker 2
I incorporate that into my business as well. I joined with him years ago, so it really came down to us both having an energy background. But as a developer, seeing that the need in the marketplace was for additional energy. And so that's kind of where this all started a number of years ago. We've kind of ran from it, I'd say, about in the last six or seven years.

00;02;18;17 - 00;02;36;03
Speaker 1
So what is a makeover? This is just like you're telling me what it sounds like. It's a it's not a main power plant, but it helps. It's a it's a smaller distribution from that. And so there's are there many micro-grids outside of this major power plant that is sort of or does it look like if I look at a grid.

00;02;36;06 - 00;03;02;23
Speaker 2
Say, like an industrial site, a micro grid is pretty much a smaller power plant would be the best way to put it in layman's terms. So instead of a large scale gas fired power plant or a coal plant having to come through the main transmission lines and the public utility specific say there was an old steel mill site that had been shut down for years, the steel mills were torn down and developers coming years later looking to develop that site site.

00;03;02;25 - 00;03;31;17
Speaker 2
Well, generally there is power that can be available and reconnected from the public utility, but it just takes a really long time because of the backlog that I just mentioned. So what a micro grid is, is you can utilize natural gas, for example, from the pipeline or gas wells that are, you know, in close proximity and you could feed smaller gas fired gensets or you can even do a hybrid approach where you do, you know, a solar farm and a solar farm can feed a micro grid.

00;03;31;17 - 00;04;00;10
Speaker 2
What that does is that provides power for that said, sites say you have 100 acres former steel mill site. We're going to develop that we can utilize these smaller gas fired gensets and or a solar farm and some smaller solar and combine them to create electricity for that site. Now that site will have its own power supply. So then if I can do this mini steel mill or a data center or something like that, crypto mining operation wants to come on.

00;04;00;12 - 00;04;10;29
Speaker 2
We can provide them redundant power on their site, essentially island them off. And there's many different versions of being able to do that. And the reason is that we would want to do that as well.

00;04;10;29 - 00;04;16;18
Speaker 1
What are ways to develop microgrids? What's the first thing you do to get one going?

00;04;16;18 - 00;04;36;19
Speaker 2
So first thing you do obviously identify the sites and and what the end users need. And this again, can also be done on current buildings and structures. It doesn't have to be on new development or industrial sites. So for example, other areas that you can can help out would be like hospitals. You know, they can have their own power supply.

00;04;36;19 - 00;04;57;11
Speaker 2
And this and that. But like how you would do that is I have a gas pipeline that happens to run into a specific site. We identify that site as long as that gas pipeline isn't five miles away or we have to run another line, if we have assets to that site, we can utilize that gas. Smaller gensets I can provide one megawatt five megawatts up to 20 megawatts.

00;04;57;13 - 00;05;19;16
Speaker 2
The gas feeds the gensets and then you step down that through trains, transformers and whatnot to step down onto the site. And then that provides that electricity. And then your end user, once they build, connects right to it and then they have their own source of redundant power supply, feeding it from clean natural gas and or like a solar farm.

00;05;19;18 - 00;05;41;03
Speaker 1
So as I moved to Pittsburgh, I started seeing these probably in the eighties, steel mills shutting down and then redeveloping into multiple office buildings, switched and signal went down. Is now a strip mall you a bunch of different areas how does the can can when you do that does it help the community at all. I mean is it is it just for that area or can a microgrid actually help people around?

00;05;41;03 - 00;05;42;13
Speaker 1
How does it benefit the community can.

00;05;42;14 - 00;06;05;05
Speaker 2
Benefit a community in many ways. A as I said, you're providing your own redundant power source, but where it gets is on a site. Like I say, it's just a commercial with office and you know, the industrial site that got redeveloped into say like condos, restaurants, things that site there can also have its own power supply, but where that's where it actually benefits the end user is on site.

00;06;05;07 - 00;06;40;11
Speaker 2
So if you are providing say, 20 megawatts of power and your site only needs ten, that additional revenue in power can be sold back into the grid. So then you're supplying the outside world, or at least in their local region, their own additional power. It's helping that grid. So you're not straining the main power grid. Plus that costs savings can be passed on to your users on that site, whether that's the office buildings, whether that's a data center technology park or another heavy manufacturer, you can that helps the savings to keep them profitable in their long term.

00;06;40;11 - 00;07;02;22
Speaker 2
It keeps their energy costs low. Plus for the environment, I mean, when you're doing it from clean natural gas and or solar, I mean, those are good, good areas that you're able to in sectors that are good for the environment. Plus, again, if you're building out these larger or older industrial commercial sites, it's less strain on the major power grid that you wherever you buy into.

00;07;02;22 - 00;07;16;00
Speaker 2
So you're providing your own power source and not having to take that might need for new residential areas down the way. And or if you're selling that power back into the grid that's available power for say like New York new home builds and other commercial development as well.

00;07;16;00 - 00;07;28;13
Speaker 1
So when you find a spot, what are you looking for in that location that makes it optimum for a grid someplace, as I'm sure you can't just put a grid there even though you'd like to. But what? How do you look at a spot and say, that's good?

00;07;28;15 - 00;07;48;05
Speaker 2
Well, it comes down to resources around so close proximity to gas pipeline. And on a solar farm, you want to make sure that you have the available space just because solar the difference between them and putting up gas gensets as the gas gensets can be both a very small place and provide abundance of more power than a solar farm can.

00;07;48;12 - 00;08;10;25
Speaker 2
Solar farm needs a lot of space. So I do need space. I need sunlight for that. Obviously. So even if you're in a cloudier area like Pittsburgh or a sunny area or like Philadelphia where there's a position as well, if you're tucked into a valley, that's not going to help. So you want to be able to have like hillside property for that or a good flat space that catches a lot of sun.

00;08;10;27 - 00;08;31;24
Speaker 2
Having the availability to a even if it was a disconnected substation. So the substations are the larger you'll see when you drive by you see all the transformers right then that's generally when the main transmission lines are coming from a large power plant as they're getting passed on. That's kind of your midpoint and.

00;08;31;26 - 00;08;33;09
Speaker 1
That's not a microgrid.

00;08;33;12 - 00;08;35;20
Speaker 2
No, it's not. That's a such a substation.

00;08;35;20 - 00;08;36;13
Speaker 1
That's a yeah. Okay.

00;08;36;13 - 00;08;54;20
Speaker 2
So those are where your transformers are and then you pass that power on to the next one is how it steps down off of that main generation. But having that close proximity or to a site because generally if it's a let's say steel mill site, that substation was there feeding power to that steel mill because they use a lot of electricity.

00;08;54;22 - 00;09;20;22
Speaker 2
They don't just take those out. So after they disconnect them, they're still there having that availability as another option because in where we look at these sites, it's a value to us because now if I want to sell power back into the grid now I have a direct connect back in. Once I reconnect that sub, you know, other areas would be, you know, water sometimes is good to help because if you're getting a data center on the site, they need water.

00;09;20;24 - 00;09;48;04
Speaker 2
So having the mail availability and have water access off of either a lake or a river with like a pump station and a cleaning facility that cleans that water, that's really big for us. And then rail everywhere else service nearby. Because if you're getting heavy manufacturing on there, having a rail line that's on the site next to the site or nearby really helps out for transportation, depending on, you know, if that's iron or metals or specialty metals, they want to be able to ship that out.

00;09;48;06 - 00;09;51;28
Speaker 2
And having rail is is a really good benefit for us as well.

00;09;52;05 - 00;10;03;07
Speaker 1
So if I'm driving around Pittsburgh and how would I recognize that a microgrid is going up, other projects going on now where that I'd say, that there's a microgrid going on, what does it look like?

00;10;03;07 - 00;10;22;16
Speaker 2
So they're heading they like the high, you know, because they dress it up. But if you see a large scale solar farm next to, say, an airport, so for example, Pittsburgh International Airport, it's a great project that they did about five or six years ago. They had announced that they were going to do a revamp of the airport.

00;10;22;18 - 00;10;55;27
Speaker 2
They remodel a lot of updates. One of them was a microgrid and they happen to have a lot of excess land next to the airport. So about ten years ago or so, they had drilled some natural gas wells on that property. That gas now is feeding about five gas gensets plus they built solar farms. So if you see a large solar farm next to an airport or a large prison or jail or a large hospital or an industrial site, say like a U.S. steel mill, for example, of that, you would have to see that would be signs of what a microgrid they're generally taking.

00;10;56;00 - 00;11;03;02
Speaker 1
That's one element is a solar panel, because that's the most visible is is something that's not visible that out Gensets Yeah.

00;11;03;04 - 00;11;23;03
Speaker 2
And off they're usually encased in some kind of building, steel building and they like to dress it and put bushes around and keep looking, make it look nice. But that airport project is a is a model project that they did because what that did for the airport was they originally wanted to build that microgrid there because of a potential grid meltdown.

00;11;23;06 - 00;11;27;07
Speaker 2
And and in case of that, they didn't want to have the airport shut down.

00;11;27;10 - 00;11;32;27
Speaker 1
So that can work independent of the actual grid. Okay. So for how long how long could that last?

00;11;32;27 - 00;11;34;18
Speaker 2
As long as they possibly need.

00;11;34;21 - 00;11;37;18
Speaker 1
Really? Because the solar is renewable and I guess yeah.

00;11;37;21 - 00;11;42;18
Speaker 2
On the natural gas is there for the next 60 to 100 years.

00;11;42;20 - 00;11;44;24
Speaker 1
Is it a drill on site or is it.

00;11;44;26 - 00;11;48;15
Speaker 2
It's on a property properties. Right. Okay. So they own the property.

00;11;48;17 - 00;11;54;24
Speaker 1
So the natural gas in the property there. So they got whatever is into their properties there. Theirs for energy for however long it lasts.

00;11;54;26 - 00;12;29;03
Speaker 2
In the region where they are, we have the shale gas in the Utica gas, it's a rock formation where and it's generally guys anywhere from 5000 to 10000 feet down. Is your Marcellus Shale typically. And then Utica is obviously there's multiple other layers of shale, but within that shale rock is trapped natural gas. So when the ENP companies come in the exploration companies that do this for a living and they drill there as well, then they can get that natural gas out and ship it right, you know, across the field there.

00;12;29;03 - 00;12;48;07
Speaker 2
And it goes into these gas Gensets So the airport is powered on its own site. Because of that, they generate about 24 megawatts of power consistently. They are island and off. So the whole airport plus their two hotels have their own power source. Now, they are still connected to the grid and they're able to sell about ten megawatts of power.

00;12;48;07 - 00;13;10;16
Speaker 2
So as they move forward in this project, a few of the companies that they like, consultants and modeling companies and engineering firms and whatnot, found that this is not only giving their own power source for not security, this is a redundant power. This is giving a revenue stream and savings cost. So they're saving about $1,000,000 a year now by doing this.

00;13;10;18 - 00;13;14;29
Speaker 2
And they're they can sell the power back into the grid. So it's a profitable way.

00;13;14;29 - 00;13;24;23
Speaker 1
And so they don't really need to be a part of the normal grid, are they the normal tourism? Maybe the backup, but they could be completely cut off if they want to, but they're not because they can sell back.

00;13;24;25 - 00;13;27;14
Speaker 2
Yeah, their connection that's still there is because they're selling back.

00;13;27;14 - 00;13;39;14
Speaker 1
And so basically they're not only backing up their own power, they're creating a revenue stream for themselves because they're their own power plant. They don't need all of that. So not only is it backup, it's that I see what you're saying. Okay, I get it.

00;13;39;16 - 00;14;02;14
Speaker 2
So it's kind of where this is moving forward because there is a lot of opposition against large scale. Obviously, coal fired plants. I personally don't see any coal fired plants called coal fired power plants being commissioned and permitted ever again in the United States. Now, time will tell. Obviously, when it comes down to if they really need power or if we have a global conflict where a power is needed immediately, they might.

00;14;02;14 - 00;14;38;14
Speaker 2
But natural gas fired power plants, they actually commissioned the most highest percentage in 2018. But since 2018, it's significantly dropped due to solar farms, wind coming online and it getting pushed ahead of gas fired because there is opposition. So because these large scale power plant projects are either not being shut down or the companies are just taking too long because of lawsuits, environmental groups, this is a good way to still be able to provide the necessary power for not only redundancy for an airport or another project would be the Philadelphia Naval Yard shipyard.

00;14;38;15 - 00;15;05;25
Speaker 2
Right. They are in a microgrid. I think it's about ten megawatts. But hospitals, jails can use this. But for growth, we're seeing a trend of reshoring of jobs. It started around 2017, 2018, and just in 2022, Ohio reshoring, I believe it was about 26,000 jobs, a lot of it in manufacturing coming from Germany, Europe. And so the reshoring of manufacturing is coming back and these companies need additional power.

00;15;05;25 - 00;15;33;12
Speaker 2
That's just not available. So this might be the microgrid technology gives the availability to provide power sooner because these large scale power plant projects are a lot of them are kind of they're not going through and they're being shut down and it's just a backlog. This gives a quicker time response to be able to provide that power. Plus, it is good for the environment because you are using clean natural gas with like, you know, renewable like solar.

00;15;33;15 - 00;15;54;14
Speaker 2
And on top of that, you're not putting a strain on the public utility. So as housing developments grow, they're going to be relying on the public utility generation and supply. So this gives the availability of that. Yes, we are able to develop this industrial site, bring this heavy manufacture and or a large scale data center who is very high energy.

00;15;54;14 - 00;16;14;27
Speaker 2
They use high energy data centers, crypto miners. You know, I would yeah, all this they need this kind of energy. And so this it's a win win in multiple ways because it's a shorter time frame to be able to get permanent. You can do in smaller blocks. It's profitable because you can sell it back into the grid and you're not putting a strain on on the public utility.

00;16;14;29 - 00;16;26;18
Speaker 2
Plus environmentally, if it if done in the proper hybrid space, it's it's a no brainer because it's clean energy. And so and it's providing, you know, abundance and jobs and growth.

00;16;26;18 - 00;16;31;27
Speaker 2
so what about reshoring? What is that about?

00;16;32;00 - 00;16;52;02
Speaker 1
So where this to come hand in hand is. You know, there was a big emphasis under the Trump administration with reshoring jobs and bringing, you know, manufacturing back because, you know, over the course of when the steel mills closed down and a lot of manufacturing went out of business. And so at least overseas, China took the lead. India took a lot of it.

00;16;52;03 - 00;17;10;11
Speaker 1
So there has been a big number of reshoring of jobs that have come over. And for it to give you some statistics, you know, Pennsylvania is kind of lacking, and that's what we're trying to fight with pay. But our neighbors are doing really well. For example, the numbers came out at the end of 2022 where 46,000 jobs were restored in New York.

00;17;10;16 - 00;17;31;27
Speaker 1
And 28, I believe it's 24 to 25000 were restored in Ohio. I mean, even Maryland and collectively and in West Virginia beat Pennsylvania. West Virginia had about 7008 thousand went to Maryland. So where this comes in is, you know, and it was an earlier question you had posed, you know what? Why micro-grids? Where did this idea come from?

00;17;31;29 - 00;17;55;00
Speaker 1
And so the reshoring of jobs, the power, necessary power is not available because there is a backlog since we fall into the PJM market. It's a it's a coalition of 13 states interconnect the power. So the power generation out of the power plants, there's a backlog because there's so much solar and wind that has been, you know, applications applied.

00;17;55;02 - 00;18;18;11
Speaker 1
Where microgrids come in is it helps bring that power available sooner rather than later. And it goes back to everything else we said about, you know, cleaner energy, not taking from the public utility, but these companies, we work in development in many different industries. That's warehousing where we build out for a lot of manufacturing plastics, manufacturing, chemical plants.

00;18;18;14 - 00;18;46;24
Speaker 1
I mean, to the tech industry, again, with AI data centers, crypto mining is another big one. They need power now. I mean, I have requests for ten, 20, 30 megawatts blocks of power that I could put online in 30 days. If the powers are not available with the public utility, it just takes too long. And these companies are we're going to start to lose that momentum with that reshoring of jobs, specifically in the manufacturing industry and with a lot of the chip shortage that we dealt with.

00;18;47;00 - 00;19;07;08
Speaker 1
And and there has been there's been bills passed through through Congress, and the president signed off where there's billions of dollars available for chip manufacturing. They come from Taiwan. Here we're dealing with it out west with our warehouses, microgrids. Give that opportunity for that. They give the ability to give that independent power, and it gives sovereign power for these smaller communities.

00;19;07;08 - 00;19;37;21
Speaker 1
Back when all these communities were decimated, when the steel mills left. And so there have been waiting for 40 plus years to get get some industry back microgrids, give the reshoring an opportunity to have power available now. And that's kind of where we've been really putting a big emphasis on because the opportunity here is is now as a lot of reshoring is coming from like Germany, Europe and then also the chip manufacturers, that battery manufacturers coming from Taiwan because of the conflict there with China.

00;19;37;21 - 00;19;44;22
Speaker 1
So that's where micro-grids come into play as we can give them power sooner rather than waiting three or four or five years. Yeah.

00;19;45;01 - 00;19;49;15
Speaker 1
So when you want to put a when you're looking for a place in identifying for a microgrid

00;19;49;15 - 00;19;58;15
Speaker 1
what are you looking for as far as the minimum need, like an airport needs a microgrid, What, a hospital need it? Or would it be an industrial area with a bunch of buildings, hospitals in?

00;19;58;15 - 00;20;15;04
Speaker 2
You are seeing them across the country. Hospitals are. And they're doing a lot for backup supply because that's a security issue for them. Now that they're getting into that, if you can get enough power to sell back into the grid where hospitals might have challenges is a lot of hospitals are in a bit of a city or whatnot.

00;20;15;04 - 00;20;34;07
Speaker 2
So major gas lines aren't really tight and it's usually the smaller lines that start feeding into the city. But there's plenty of projects out there. A hospital likes to have a microgrid of their own, even on a smaller scale, just in case the public utility would go down. Because I'm a patient here in middle surgery and power. Yeah, goes down.

00;20;34;10 - 00;20;54;23
Speaker 2
You know, you want to be able to have backup supply. And what's nice is you have battery storage for that. So you're actually supplying and storing as you utilize this microgrids generating, you can supply backup power. Another one would be like prisons and jails. That's a I mean, that's a natural. You don't want to be have power going out with any kind of prisons or jails, things like that.

00;20;54;23 - 00;21;15;06
Speaker 2
So it's a it's a it's a necessary project for redundant power for sectors like that hospitals, jails, prisons. And then again, you get into military bases, you know, like the Philadelphia Naval Naval Yard. I mean, it's it's it's a must if they have power at all times.

00;21;15;08 - 00;21;17;19
Speaker 1
Good. Good to know. And it's about microgrids.

00;21;17;19 - 00;21;30;06
Speaker 2
Any day now you're going to see a lot more coming up for Yeah, developing quite a few projects is going to provide unbelievable opportunity for the area and growth and they'll be announced pretty soon here.

00;21;30;06 - 00;21;31;19
Speaker 1
Thanks for your good information.