Mahmoud Kabalan, associate professor of electrical engineering and founding director of the Center for Microgrid Research at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering, recently spoke with Marketplace about the role microgrids play in improving resiliency during winter storms in Texas.

From the story:
The state continues to shore up its electric grid, while individuals and businesses have been springing for their own options when extreme weather knocks out power. It’s part of why the use of microgrids is on the rise, which the Dallas Fed noted in a recent report.
While generators and microgrids both provide backup power, there’s a key difference between the two, according to Mahmoud Kabalan, an associate professor and director of the Center for Microgrid Research at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.
A generator “can be sitting there idling for many years until something happens and then it kicks in,” he said. A microgrid, however, “is running 24/7.”
A microgrid generates and supplies its own power in tandem with the grid – whether or not there’s an outage. It generates from sources like “diesel, natural gas in combination with renewable energy like solar,” explained Kabalan.