On the 10th anniversary of the Northeast blackout, a White House official descended upon Hartford to honor Connecticut’s commitment to microgrids to protect against power outages.
Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, visited the Parkville neighborhood on Wednesday to view the microgrid area that will remained powered even if the main electric grid goes down. Sutley was joined by Gov. Dannel Malloy, Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra, State Sen. John Fonfara (D-Hartford), and Curt Spalding, regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The state’s $45 million microgrid program was developed after the two power outages in 2011 that left the majority of the state without power, some for upwards of 11 days. The program provides funding for critical facilities to buy power generators and system connections that can island themselves off from the main grid in the case of an outage.
In the first round, the state provided $18 million for nine microgrids in Hartford, Middletown, Storrs, Groton, Woodbridge, Windham, Bridgeport, and Fairfield. The Parkville microgrid will power a school, senior center, and a supermarket.
The Aug. 14, 2003 blackout caused more than 50 million people across the country to lose power. The event led to the modernize of electric infrastructure to ensure reliability.
