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Community microgrids offer a way for neighborhoods, villages, towns and cities to meet their energy needs locally. Some make a community’s electricity more reliable and green; others serve critical facilities like fire, police and water treatment facilities; and still others are built for remote outposts that otherwise lack access to electricity.

Because their development can be complex, community microgrids often take more time to build than microgrids for businesses, institutions or campuses. So there are fewer in operation. But they are beginning to emerge worldwide. Here are four model community microgrids that illustrate a range of approaches to local energy.

Brooklyn, New York, USA — Blockchain for community microgrids

The Brooklyn Microgrid, run by LO3 Energy as a test project since 2016, began in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn as a way for tenants in a handful of apartment buildings to track the output of their solar panels and eventually to swap energy among participants.

“Eventually we want to be in all five boroughs,” said Adrienne Smith, Brooklyn Microgrid’s executive […]