Rapid urbanization of the world’s population is creating great sociological, environmental, and structural strains on the cities where people are moving to. Housing is becoming scarce and expensive, while the need to build new housing is placing great burdens on existing infrastructure—especially local power grids. It will be shown that integrating urban development around a microgrid concept would greatly alleviate the problems associated with urbanization. Incorporation of a microgrid, based on a cogenerating power station where waste heat is used to provide climate control and hot water and where power production is supplemented with renewable energy sources, would effectively remove the development from the local grid and greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, this model can accommodate any combination of large-scale residential, commercial, or industrial developments to revitalize the local neighborhood and can do so at a level of profit that would allow for lower rents, creating housing and job opportunities for those who are most in need.
Part of the book: Micro-grids