Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437

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Applied Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apenergy

Impact of emergency diesel generator reliability on microgrids and

building-tied systems
Jeffrey Marqusee , Sean Ericson , Don Jenket *
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, United States

H I G H L I G H T S

• Finite reliability of diesel generators is crucial for backup energy planning.

• A model comparison of building-tied and networked generator systems is presented.
• An N + 1 network has a ≥93% probability of powering all buildings for a 2-week outage.
• A single generator design is not likely to power all buildings for a 2-week outage.

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Microgrids are an emerging alternative as an energy backup system for critical electric loads and have improved
Emergency diesel generators performance compared to the traditional architecture where a single emergency diesel generator is tied to an
Microgrids individual building. Both architectures are dependent on the reliability of their individual generators and a
Reliability
quantitative and realistic comparison of the overall system reliability of the two architectures is lacking. Using
Energy resilience
Microgrid reliability
recently published work on emergency diesel generator finite reliability, a quantitative methodology is presented
Generator reliability to compare the reliability of a microgrid architecture based on centralized emergency diesel generators to the
traditional approach of generators tied to individual buildings. Three system reliability performance metrics are
calculated as a function of outage duration: (1) probability to meet 100% of the critical load; (2) expected
fraction of lost load; and (3) probability to meet the highest priority critical loads. It is shown that stand-alone
building-tied emergency diesel generators systems, even when two emergency diesel generators are used per
building, cannot provide the reliability required to sustain critical loads for a grid outage lasting multiple days.
Due to their network configuration and ability to share load, diesel generator-based microgrid configurations are
estimated to have ≥ 93% probability of powering all buildings for a 2-week outage there the individual building-
tied emergency diesel generator architecture has a ≤20% probability. Microgrids do present other susceptibilities
that are site specific and should be considered including vulnerabilities associated with the on-campus distri­
bution system and cybersecurity.

1. Background Customers with critical backup power requirements have historically

Microgrids have emerged in the last decade [1] as a solution for end
users’ need for energy security and higher energy reliability. They are an
alternative to traditional standby power system comprised of building-
tied emergency generators. Although the primary driver for deploying
a microgrid is to support critical loads during a grid outage, the litera­
tures’ focus has primarily been on their multiple revenue streams [2]
and few comparisons have been conducted on their performance relative
to traditional approaches to provide power during a grid outage.
relied on building-tied generators with short-term fuel stockpiles to
provide emergency backup power during a grid outage. The Department
of Homeland Security’s Enhanced Critical Infrastructure Program
Initiative reports that 85% of backup power for the U.S. critical infra­
structure is provided by emergency or standby diesel generators [3]. The
role and size of the backup power capacity varies among critical facil­
ities: 28% of facilities have backup power for all functions, 38% for their
core or critical functions, 27% only for life and safety systems, and 6% to
allow for a graceful shutdown [3]. In the case of a stand-alone backup

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: donald.jenket@nrel.gov (D. Jenket).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116437
Received 15 June 2020; Received in revised form 13 November 2020; Accepted 3 January 2021
Available online 16 January 2021
0306-2619/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Marqusee et al.
power system, every building requiring power during a grid outage has a
single (building-tied) backup generator that is hardwired directly to the
building. Two individual backup generators can also be utilized for
buildings with high priority building loads. This configuration offers a
backup to the backup and provides a higher degree of reliability.
Building-tied emergency diesel generators (EDGs) typically range in size
from 10 kW to a few hundred kWs.
A microgrid offers a different approach to provide backup power for
critical facilities and today is often viewed as a potential solution for
campuses, military installations, and communities in light of the
growing concerns of multiday grid outages. A microgrid is a local system
of distributed energy resources (DERs) and energy demands that can
operate as one entity both in conjunction with to the commercial grid or
separately during a grid outage (“island” mode). When connected to the
grid, it can offer revenue generation and cost savings. During a com­
mercial grid outage, it can provide emergency backup power. DERs that
comprise a microgrid can include any energy generation and storage
technologies, including emergency generators, prime generators, com­
bined heat and power plants, renewables, batteries, as well as many
other energy technologies. This work is focused on microgrids powered
by a modest number of larger EDGs that are often placed in a single
location on the campus. Centrally locating EDGs is a common microgrid
configuration for ease of maintenance, refueling, and integration with
both the on-campus distribution and the grid. Microgrid reliability is
dependent on the vulnerability of the on-campus distribution system,
while building tied systems are not. Many campuses that have experi­
enced long duration outages due to grid failures see no impact to their
on-campus distribution system either because it is not located where the
greatest damage to the grid occurred or because its distribution system is
hardened or protected. The probability that the on-campus distribution
system is disrupted during a long duration grid outage is very site spe­
cific and should be considered as an additional factor to those consid­
ered in this paper.
The availability of electric power and its reliability from microgrids
versus the traditional energy backup system of building-tied EDGs is
dependent on the reliability of the individual EDGs, the most commonly
used DER for providing backup power. Although it is recognized that
DER selection determines the reliability of a microgrid system as high­
lighted in recent reviews [4] and surveys [5], quantitative and realistic
assessments on the impact of DER reliability on microgrid reliability and
a comparison to existing common alternatives is absent from the
literature.
Studies that have examined microgrid reliability have used generator
performance metrics that are almost two times too high [6] or use a
probabilistic capacity table to estimate system performance [7].
Techniques to select the optimum mix of DERs do not consider the
reliability differences of the DERs being considered [8]. Recent reviews
of the role of microgrids to provide resilience have highlighted the
importance of a microgrid but ignores its vulnerabilities to DER reli­
ability [9]. Ignoring the reliability of the DER is an incorrect approach in
general [10] and when applied to power systems [11]. A few recent
studies have attempted to assess the impact of DER reliability on a
microgrid’s reliability using cross-entropy [12] and sequential [13]
Monte Carlo simulation but neither use realistic estimates for DER
reliability.1 Industry has recognized this issue and has highlighted this
gap in the ability to assess microgrid performance [14].
Multiple software tools have been developed to design and optimize
microgrid configurations [1]. Most do not account for DER reliability at
all. A few treat it using Monte Carlo approaches, which have short­
comings associated with the root assumptions and have not been used to
assess the impact using realistic reliabilities for the key DERs. Three
commonly used modeling tools: REopt [15 16], developed by the Na­
tional Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Hybrid Optimization
1
Unrealistically high failure rates have been used.
2
Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437
Model for Multiple Energy Resources (HOMER) [17], and Distributed
Energy Resource, Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) [18 19],
developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, do not take into
account the nonperfect reliability of the DERs that make up the micro­
grid. Although they discuss reliability and resilience, none consider DER
reliability in determining the microgrid’s performance. For example,
recent analysis using REopt has assessed resilience by considering finite
fuel supplies [20] but always assumes that if fuel is available the gen­
erators will operate. The Microgrid Design Toolkit (MDT) [21 22],
developed by Sandia National Laboratory, calculates microgrid perfor­
mance in an islanded mode using a Monte Carlo simulation to account
for DER reliability. But they provide no recommendations on how to
model the individual DER reliability. Direct Monte Carlo simulations for
rare events are slow to converge and thus difficult to use to assess overall
microgrid reliability. To date, Sandia’s tool has not been used to assess
the impact of DER reliability on a microgrid’s reliability.
In this paper, a quantitative methodology is presented to compare
the reliability of a common microgrid architecture based on centralized
EDGs and the traditional approach of stand-alone EDGs tied to indi­
vidual buildings. Using recently published work on EDG reliability [11],
the large difference in energy reliability for these two systems is illus­
trated and its sensitivity to key energy consumption and generation
characteristics.
In the next section, two model campuses are presented that are
representative of the many different type of sites who consider deploy­
ing a microgrid as an alternative to building-tied EDGs. These will be
used to highlight the reliability comparison between microgrids and
building-tied architectures. In Section 3, the reliability of an individual
EDG is reviewed. In Section 4, the methodology for calculating the
system reliability of a microgrid and traditional building-tied backup
power systems is described. In Section 5, results are provided for the two
example campuses and a characterization of the sensitivity of a system’s
reliability to key energy consumption and generation characteristics.
Lastly, a brief discussion is provided on the importance of considering
finite reliability when considering a microgrid and discuss future
directions.
2. Backup power architectures: stand-alone and microgrid
To illustrate the impact of EDG reliability, two realistic cases were
created for a campus or group of buildings that require backup power: a
small campus with a peak annual critical hourly load of 1 MW and a
large campus with a peak annual critical hourly load of 10 MW. The
small campus represents a typical critical load seen in colleges [23],
national guard bases [24], regional airports [25], and community hos­
pitals. The second larger example is typical of critical loads seen in large
universities [26], large active military installations [24], midsize air­
ports [25], and research hospital complexes. For each campus, three
EDG-based architectures are modeled.
In the first architecture, each building with a critical load is con­
nected to a single EDG. In the second architecture, each building with
high-priority critical loads is connected to two EDGs. Using two EDGs for
a single building is a common approach to provide higher reliability but
is rarely done for all critical loads on a campus due to costs. In the third
architecture, centralized EDGs are utilized to create a microgrid.
The microgrid was designed to model the commonly used N + 1
configuration. The annual peak critical load for each campus size and
the size of the EDG defined N for each scenario and an additional EDG of
the same size is added. Engineering trade-offs were used to determine
the size of the EDG for each scenario. Choosing many small EDGs would
result in high maintenance costs where choosing a few large EDGs would
make it difficult to meet future load growth in a cost-effective manner
while maintaining a common fleet of EDGs. The centralized EDGs were
constrained to be in multiples of 250 kW. The campus’ and the micro­
grid’s EDGs characteristics are listed in Table 1.
Due to the networked architecture, each generator in the microgrid
J. Marqusee et al.
Table 1
Characteristics of small and large campuses used for modeling.
Campus Size Small Large
Peak Critical Load 1 MW 10 MW
Number of Buildings with Critical Loads 8 80
Size of Centralized EDGs 250 kW 750 kW
Number of Centralized EDGs (N + 1) 5 15
can provide power to every building in the campus. Therefore, the
critical load profile must be known to assess the microgrid’s perfor­
mance because the effective redundancy of the networked EDGs will
vary as the load demand changes. For the first two building-tied EDG
architectures, information about the overall critical load demand is not
needed because each EDG can only support the building it is tied to, even
if it has excess capacity. Hourly load profiles from six military bases, two
universities, and one hospital were gathered and reviewed. Based on
critical loads found on similarly sized campuses, load profiles were
created for the small and large campuses, so their annual peak critical
loads are 1 MW and 10 MW, respectively. Fig. 1 shows the hourly load
profiles used in this study in hourly kW and the number of EDGs.
Critical load during peak summer months is typically higher than the
rest of the year, and peak load hours at that time drive the number of
centralized EDGs required. During the winter months and off-peak pe­
riods, multiple generators would have to fail for load to be dropped by
the microgrid. No such redundancy is possible with a building-tied
system.
3. Single EDG reliability
In this section, recently published work on the reliability of a single
EDG is reviewed, a short introduction to reliability theory is presented,
the relevant reliability metrics to quantitively represent an EDG are
illustrated, and the empirical data on EDG performance [11] is
reviewed.
Most energy systems or components are designed to operate
continuously, and their reliability assessments are conducted appropri­
ately. However, EDGs only run during testing or during an outage and
therefore rest in an unused state for most of the year.
Additionally, their yearly operation was limited to 200 h (for non-
emergency use) by the Clean Air Act regulations, and most run for less
than that. Understanding the intended use for backup devices and the
corresponding time intervals becomes important when defining EDG
reliability metrics for backup power.
To address the irregular use of EDGs, the EDG is assumed to suc­
cessfully start, can carry the load, and then a mean time to failure
(MTTF) is defined that captures failures while the EDG is running. This
MTTF can be determined by:
tr
MTTF = (1)
nrtf
where tr is the total runtime and nrtf is the number of failures while
running or run-time failures. This MTTF is not dependent on the reli­
ability of the grid or how often the EDG is tested. This metric is defined
by total runtime and the number of failures that occur while running.
To capture the likelihood that the EDG fails to start and carry the
load, another reliability metric, the failure to start probability (FTS), is
introduced and is calculated as:
nfts
Failure to Start Probability (FTS) = (2)
nats
where nfts is the number of failures to start and nats is the number of
attempts to start. These two metrics characterize the intrinsic reliability
of an EDG (i.e., detached from the reliability of the grid and the testing
rate).
An additional metric, the operational availability (OA), which cap­
3
Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437
tures the likelihood the EDG is available at the start of a grid outage and
is calculated by:
l − tol
OA = (3)
l
where l is the lifetime and tol is time offline due to repairs and mainte­
nance. The OA metric can change based on maintenance schedules,
repair times, and annual failure rates.
For this model, the EDG is assumed to be in its “useful life period”
and the run-time failure rate is constant. This rate can be calculated as
the inverse of the MTTF. Thus, the reliability of an EDG at time t is given
by:
R(t) = OA × (1 − FTS) × e− t/MTTF
(4)
A recent report [11] reviews the current EDG reliability literature
and demonstrates that commonly reported values in the literature are
inappropriate for assessing an EDG’s reliability. The results presented
differ significantly from the reliability data in the Institute of Electrical
and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 3006.8 Recommended Practice for
Analyzing Reliability Data for Equipment Used in Industrial and Com­
mercial Power Systems [10].
The IEEE reliability data is often incorrectly used to estimate the
reliability of continuously running EDGs during a grid outage. Based on
a detailed analysis [11] of data on thousands of EDG years of fielded
commercial EDGs collected by the U.S. Army [27] and Navy (28) (see
Table 2), modern2 well-maintained EDGs in the power range of
10–2000 kW can be characterized by the values in Table 3.
When calculating the lower bound for reliability, the low MTTF with
a high FTS is used and vice versa for the upper bound. These reliability
metrics are more than an order of magnitude better than seen in poorly
maintained EDGs [29] and also better3 than the values reported for the
much larger EDGs used to support nuclear power plants in the United
States [30].
Summarizing [11] mean operational availability of a well-
maintained EDG is 99.98%. This high availability reflects the small
number of EDG runs per year, and thus the small number of potential
failures per year. A single well-maintained EDG has a reliability between
92% and 96% for providing backup power for four days (96 h) into an
outage (the current requirements for critical loads at hospitals [31]),
between 90% and 95% for a one week outage, and between 75% and
87% for a two-week outage (requirements for critical loads at military
facilities).
4. System reliability
In this section, the system-level reliability is derived for a system of
building-tied EDGs and a microgrid based on centralized EDGs [32]. The
mean time to repair an EDG is 37 h [11] and the model assumes that
failed EDGs will not be repaired during the outage for both systems.
4.1. Building-tied
In the first modeled architecture, each building with a critical load
has one EDG connected to it. If the generator fails, the building will lose
power. In the second modeled architecture, both EDGs have to fail for
the building to lose power. A generator can fail in three ways: (1) not
being at the start of an outage due to maintenance or repairs, (2) failing
to start, or (3) failing to continuously run for the duration of the outage.
The likelihood that an EDG survives an outage of duration d, R1 (d), is
calculated using the three reliability metrics presented in the previous
2
By modern, the meaning is that typical of EDGs deployed today.
3
Commercial well-maintained EDGs used on campuses are two to three times
more reliable than those used in nuclear power plants.
J. Marqusee et al. Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437

Fig. 1. Modeled campus critical load profiles with generator step sizes for small (left) and large (right) campus.

()
b
Table 2 where k denotes the number of combinations of selecting k buildings
Summary of the datasets used in (11) to obtain MTTF and FTS parameters in
from the set of b possible buildings. The average number of buildings
Table 3.
that still have power at time d can be calculated using the mean value of
Source # EDG Years of Comments
k at time d:
(Ref) EDGs Observation

Army 304 2298 • Representative size EDG Mean(k) = b × Ri (d) (9)

[27] (≤1500 kW)
• Mixed maintenance
The remainder is the number of buildings without power or simply b
Navy [28] 239 1281 • Representative size EDGS minus k. Lastly, the fraction of expected loss of power (ELP) can
(10–2000 kW) equivalently represent this data and can be approximated as:
• Well-maintained
ELPi (d) = 1 − Ri (d) (10)
This model assumes all the EDGs have the same reliability metrics
Table 3 and each building (with the same architecture) is equally reliable.
Mean reliability metrics and 90% confidence intervals (11) used in this model. Therefore, the total number of buildings do not affect the ELP as this
Metric Low (90% confidence) Mean High (90% confidence) reflects the average fraction of buildings without power for any campus
size.
MTTF 1180 h 1662 h 2410 h
FTS 0.10% 0.13% 0.17%

4.2. Microgrid
section:
Due to the network configuration of a microgrid, the reliability cal­
R1 (d) = OA × (1 − FTS) × e− d/MTTF
(5) culations require a different approach than the building-tied architec­
tures. The critical load demand varies with season, day of week, and
If two generators are connected to a building, then the system sur­
time of day. A backup system that has an N + 1 configuration for the
vives if at least one of the generators survives. The survival probability
peak critical load may have significant additional redundancy for much
of the building having power for the duration of the outage is deter­
of the year.
mined by the probability of either generator surviving, which is given
Fig. 2 displays the annual percentage of critical load for the large
by:
campus scenario ordered by load size. A microgrid system with N + 1
R2 (d) = 2*R1 (d) − R1 (d)*R1 (d) (6) generators, with each generator sized at 750 kW, has a redundancy of N
+ 5 or more for more than 80% of the year. The irregularity of the
In a campus-like environment, such as a hospital complex, military
bases, airports, and universities, critical loads occur in multiple build­
ings. To meet the critical functions and provide for health and safety, a
campus needs to have all or most of its critical loads supported. If there
are b independent buildings with critical loads of concern and i EDGs
tied to each building, the probability of all b buildings having power
(ABHP) at outage hour d during a grid outage is then:

ABHPi (b, d) = Ri (d)b (7)

Another way to present this data is to calculate the average number
of buildings that are likely to lose power during an outage. Out of b
buildings, the probability that k buildings have power at time d is given
by the binomial distribution:
( )
b
Ƥi (b, k, d) = Ri (d)k (1 − Ri (d))b− k (8)
k

Fig. 2. Percentage of annual critical load for large campus ordered by load size.

4
J. Marqusee et al.
critical load must be included when calculating the probability of sur­
vival and the expected critical load lost.
The critical load profiles used in this analysis come at hourly in­
tervals, and a discrete representation of component reliability must be
used for the microgrid analysis compared to the continuous formulation
used for the building-tied scenarios. The probability that n generators
can provide power at the start of an outage from a total of N generators is
given by P(n, 0):
( )
N ABHPm (d) =
P(n, 0) = (OA*(1 − FTS) )n *(1 − OA*(1 − FTS) )N− n (11)
n
which is simply the combinatorics formula for n generators being
available and not failing to start, and N − n generators being unavailable
or failing to start. The model assumes all EDGs attempt to start at the
beginning of the grid outage even though all N + 1 might not be
required. It is optimal to run EDGs at 50–80% of their maximum ca­
pacity [33]. For the scenarios, the average annual hourly critical load is
approximately 50–60% of the peak and the peak load is between 80%
and 90% of the total N + 1 EDG capacity. Having the model start all the
EDGs and continually running them properly loads the EDGs.
Starting with n running generators, the likelihood that n’ generators
are running in the next hour is given by p(n, n’ ):
(n)
(1 − FTR)n *FTRn− n (12)
’ ’
p(n, n’ ) =
n’
where FTR is the discrete hourly version of exponential decay rate. A
Markov matrix is used to capture the likelihood of n generators still
operating after d outage hours, designated as P(n, d):
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ ⎤d ⎡ ⎤ 5. Application of architecture reliability to scenarios
P(0, d) 1 p(n, 0) ⋯ p(N, 0) P(0, 0)
⎢ P(1, d) ⎥ ⎢ 0 p(n, n’ ) ⋯ p(N, n’ ) ⎥ ⎢ P(1, 0) ⎥
⎢
⎣ ⋮ ⎦ = ⎣⋮
⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢
⎦ ⎣ ⋮ ⎦
⎥ (13)
⋮ ⋱ ⋮
P(N, d) 0 ⋯ 0 p(N, N) P(N, 0)
The amount of unserved load for each hour is dependent on the
critical load demand and number of generators running during that
hour. The unserved load for an outage starting at time t, in outage hour
d, given n currently working generators, each with a capacity of c, is
given by:
C(n, d, t) = max(0, L(t + d) − c*n) (14)
where L(t +d) denotes the critical load in hour t +d and C denotes the
quantity of unserved load. The model assumes that outages are equally
likely to occur throughout the year, and the microgrid’s expected per­
centage of load shed at outage duration d is:
( )
∑T ∑ N
EPLSm (d) = ∑T
1
P(n, d)*C(n, d, t) (15)
t=1 L(t) t=1 n=0
where T denotes the number of hours in the year. The above equation
says that the expected load shed in outage hour d is the sum of unserved
load across the possible number of working generators weighted by the
probability that number of generators are working in outage hour d.
Next, the probability of survival is calculated. This is equivalent to
the likelihood that all load is served (i.e. all buildings have power).
The system survives if it has sufficient generation to meet the critical
load and fails if the critical load exceeds available generation. P(n, d)
denotes the probability of n generators being available at duration d, as
defined in eq. (11), and C(n, d, t) denotes the amount of unserved load in
outage hour d for an outage beginning at time t with n working gener­
ators, as defined in eq. (14). The probability of the microgrid surviving
outage duration d with n working generators given the outage starts at
time t is denoted Sm (n, d, t). Sm (n, d, t) equals P(n, d) when unserved
critical load is zero and equals 0 when unserved critical load is positive.
5
Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437
{
0 C(n, d, t) > 0
Sm (n, d, t) = (16)
P(n, d) C(n, d, t) = 0
In other words, for each hour, the probability of having n working
generators is calculated and the probability of survival is set to zero for
systems that cannot meet the critical load. The probability that all
buildings have power in the microgrid at duration d is then calculated as:
( )∑
1 T ∑ N
Sm (n, d, t) (17)
T t=1 n=0
Generators become increasingly likely to fail to run as the outage
duration increases, and because the critical load profile varies with
when the outage starts the probability of having sufficient generator
capacity varies across the year. Figs. 3 and 4 display the probabilities
that the microgrid system at the large campus has a given number of
generators over a one-week outage for generators for well and poorly4
maintained EDGs, respectively.
The probability of outage starting is assumed to be equally likely at
any time during the year. This allows for the annual, seasonal, and daily
variability in the hourly critical load profile to be captured in the annual
average metrics discussed in the next section. This assumption can easily
be relaxed if there is knowledge on when outages are likely to start. The
chance that several generators have failed increases with outage dura­
tion and is much higher for poorly maintained generators than for well-
maintained generators. Reinforcing the need to do proper maintenance
of EDGs. In all cases shown below only well-maintained EDGs are
considered.
Illustrated below are three reliability system performance metrics
using well-maintained EDG parameters to compare the EDG system ar­
chitectures. The first metric is survivability, the likelihood that all
buildings have power as a function of outage duration. The survivability
metric posed the most difficult conditions to meet where any load not
served is considered a failure. The second metric is comparing the mean
fraction of lost load for the microgrid to the mean fraction of buildings
without power for the single building-tied EDG architecture. The last
metric compares the reliability for the highest priority critical loads,
which is represented as a fraction of the total critical load and must be
sustained during a grid outage. For this scenario the microgrid system is
compared to the two building-tied EDGs per building architecture.
Finally, the sensitivity of these results to the load and generation char­
acteristics is examined.
5.1. Survivability: probability to support 100% of critical load
The survivability results are shown below in Fig. 5. The single
building-tied EDG architecture was compared to the centralized N + 1
EDG microgrid architecture for both the small and large campus sizes.
The mean values for well-maintained EDGs are presented along with the
90% confidence intervals based on the data in Table 2. This is the most
rigid metric and it demonstrates the vast differences in reliability be­
tween the two architectures. As the campus size increases the number of
buildings, the probability that one or more building-tied generators will
fail also increases as shown in Eq. (8).
5.2. Fraction of expected lost critical load or fraction of unserved
buildings
Fig. 6 shows the average expected fraction of lost load for the single
4
Based on empirical data (29), a poorly maintained EDG is assumed to have a
MTTF of 61 h, an FTS of 1.65%, and an OA of 99.84%.
J. Marqusee et al. Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437

Fig. 3. Probability distribution that well-maintained generators will continue to provide power as a function of run time.

Fig. 4. Probability distribution that poorly maintained generators will continue to provide power as a function of run time.

Small Campus Large campus

100% 100%

80% 80%
Probability
Probability

60% 60%

40% 40%

20% 20%

0% 0%
120
144
168
192
216
240
264
288
312
336

120
144
168
192
216
240
264
288
312
336
0
24
48
72
96

0
24
48
72
96

Outage duration (hours) Outage duration (hours)

Microgrid 90% CI Microgrid 90% CI

Building-tied EDG 90% CI Building-tied EDG 90% CI

Fig. 5. Survivability or the probability of meeting 100% the critical load requirement for outages up to 14 days (336 h) for small (left) and large (right) campuses.
The results based on the 90% confidence intervals for EDG failure metrics (FTS and MTTF) are plotted with a dotted line.

building-tied EDG and microgrid architectures for the two campus sizes. for clarity. This highlights the reliability differences between the two
90% confidence intervals for the single building-tied EDG architecture EDG architectures and shows that a microgrid architecture is expected
are also shown in Fig. 6 but were omitted fir the microgrid architecture meet nearly 100% of the critical load during a two-week outage. For the

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J. Marqusee et al. Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437

25.0%

20.0%

Fraction of lost Load

15.0%

10.0%

5.0%

0.0%
0 24 48 72 96 120 144 168 192 216 240 264 288 312 336
Outage duration (hours)

1 EDG per building 90% CI

Microgrid: Small Campus Microgrid: Large Campus

Fig. 6. Expected fraction lost load for a single EDG per building and N + 1 microgrids on a small and large campus. The results based on the 90% confidence intervals
for EDG failure metrics (FTS and MTTF) are plotted with a dash-dot line for building-tied EDGs. Confidence intervals for the microgrids were not included for clarity.

single building-tied EDG architecture, the small campus is expected to
lose one or two buildings during a two-week outage, and a large campus
is expected to lose 10–20 buildings.
The fraction of buildings without power is the same for a stand-alone
EDG system for each campus because it is independent of the number of
buildings. While the microgrid at two weeks would need to shed only an
average of 34 kW and 10 kW of critical load on a large and small campus,
respectively. Confidence intervals are not shown for the microgrid cases
because they would not be clearly visible on the scale plotted. This is a
minute fraction of the 10 MW and 1 MW annual peak critical load for
these two campuses. Additionally, this metric underscores the ability for
the networked EDG architecture to choose which low-priority loads to
stop serving whereas the building-tied architectures cannot. This can be
of great value to critical infrastructure operators during long outages
when power triage becomes necessary.
5.3. Probability to meet highest priority critical loads
The ability to serve the highest priority critical loads is possibly the
most significant metric. These are loads that must be sustained to meet
critical missions or protect health and safety.
In this metric, the networking ability of the microgrid allows loads to
be shifted in real-time and high priority critical loads can be positioned
to be the last loads in the network to lose power. Building-tied EDG
systems do not have this ability and power from each DER cannot be
shifted during an outage. Their only option to increase reliability is to
increase the number of EDGs connected to an individual building. It is
common to deploy two EDGs (a backup for the backup) on the highest
priority loads. In this scenario, high priority critical load is 25% of the
total critical load and the building-tied architecture uses two EDGs per
building. The probability of being able to meet the highest priority load
is shown in Fig. 7 below.
Microgrids have nearly a 100% probability of having power gener­
ation capacity sufficient to meet the highest priority critical load for
both campuses. The probability of meeting the high priority critical load
during a two-week outage is nearly 100% for the microgrid architecture.
For the building-tied architecture using two EDGs per building, the
probability decreases to 50% at the end of a two-week outage with a
confidence interval of ±20% for the large campus and 93% with a
confidence interval of ±5% for the small campus which has 25% of the
critical load is contained in only two buildings.
The question then emerges if one could build a backup power system
that is affordable based on building-tied systems. Fig. 8 illustrates that at
least four EDGs per building are required for a large campus to have a
greater than 98% probability that power is available for the highest 25%
of priority critical loads. This would prove to be an extremely expensive
system to procure, operate, and maintain.
Each of the three metrics clearly demonstrate for these two model
campuses that building-tied EDG architectures cannot provide the en­
ergy assurance that most campuses require if they are concerned with
multiple-day outages. Due to their network configuration, microgrids
provide a robust source of power for critical loads. However, microgrids
present other susceptibilities that must be managed. Including cyber
vulnerabilities and weaknesses of the on-campus distribution system.

100%
90%
Probability

80%
70%
60%
50%
0 24 48 72 96 120 144 168 192 216 240 264 288 312 336
Outage duration (hours)

Microgrid Small Base Large Base

2 EDG per Building 2 EDG per Building
Fig. 7. Probability of meeting the highest priority critical load for a microgrid and with two building-tied EDGs on a small and large campus. The high priority
critical load is assumed to be 25% of the critical load.

7
J. Marqusee et al.
100%
90%
Probability
80%
70%
60%
50%
0 24 48 72 96 120 144 168 192 216 240 264 288 312 336
Outage duration (hours)
Microgrid
3 EDG per Building
Fig. 8. Probability of meeting 25% of highest priority critical load for a large campus as a function of the number of stand-alone EDGs per building as compared to
a microgrid.
5.4. Sensitivity analyses
5.4.1. Date and time of outage
These results represent the performance of a microgrid assuming an
outage can start with equal probability at any time during the year. The
performance of the microgrid will vary as a function of the date and time
the outage begins. The building-tied systems are independent of load
variations and thus those results are independent of seasonal load var­
iations. Fig. 9 shows the large campus variation in the probability that
100% of the critical load can be supported for a two-week outage as a
function of the time during the year at which the outage starts.
This campus is located in the mid-Atlantic region and shows the
typical summertime peak loads due to air conditioning. The variation for
shorter outrage durations is smaller because the likelihood of an EDG
failing is less and thus the impact of variable loads is smaller. The
variation in microgrid performance is much larger than the 90% confi­
dence intervals illustrated in Fig. 5 due to uncertainties in the EDG
reliability metrics. At the end of a two-week outage the average sum­
mertime probability is 90.2% as compared to an average wintertime
performance of 98.2%. A significant difference but both are still much
higher than a single building-tied architecture of EDGs.
5.4.2. Number of EDGs in the microgrid
The results presented above are for a specific number of microgrid
EDGs. Fig. 10 shows the results for the large campus microgrid as a
function of number of redundant EDGs assuming mean reliability values
for well-maintained EDGs.
As expected, an increase in EDG redundancy leads to a more reliable
Fig. 9. The probability that 100% of the critical load for a large campus can be supported at two weeks into an outage as a function of the outage start time as
compared to the annualized probability.
Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437
1 EDG per Building 2 EDG per Building
4 EDG per Building
system. Similar results are found for fraction of lost load. This is due to
the load being less than the annual peak load almost the entire year.
These results are sensitive to the assumption that an outage occurs with
equal probability any time during the year.
5.4.3. Annual load profile
The impact of the load profile on the microgrid’s performance is
illustrated below. The key load characteristic is how often the load is
near the annual peak value. Multiple load profiles were explored, which
can be characterized by the distribution of the peak critical loads. In
addition to the load profile used above, two other real load profiles were
used scaled to a 10-MW annual peak load and compared to the large
campus load profile as a baseline. Fig. 11 compares their annual hourly
load distributions.
The more infrequent high-power demand hours are the more likely
all load will be met. Similar results are seen for fraction of load lost. The
differences again are modest and less than the variation due to uncer­
tainty in the reliability metrics of an EDG. This implies that modest
uncertainty in the hourly load profile will not have a major impact on
the predictions or reliability. These three load profiles are not dramat­
ically different and a highly unusual load profile that is either nearly
constant or has rare but high-power moments will show different
behavior.
Fig. 12 shows the probability of meeting a 100% of critical load
assuming mean reliability metrics for well-maintained EDGs.
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J. Marqusee et al.
Fig. 10. The probability of a microgrid meeting 100% of the critical load requirement for a large campus for outages up to 14 days as function of the redundancy (N
+ x) of centralized EDGs.
10000.0
9000.0
Hourly Critical Load (kWh)
8000.0
7000.0
6000.0
5000.0
4000.0
3000.0
2000.0
0 1000
Baseline
Fig. 11. Critical load distribution for three load profiles for large campuses ordered by load size.
6. Conclusion
Building with critical loads. Alternatively, diesel generators can be
networked together to provide power for a microgrid. This approach is
less common but is starting to rise in popularity. During a grid outage,
emergency diesel generators can fail to provide power because they are
unavailable due to maintenance, fail to start and carry the load, or fail to
continuously run. When assessing the trade-offs of different campus
backup energy systems, one crucial criterion is the system-level reli­
ability that is dependent on outage duration. This model has examined
the impact of finite emergency diesel generator reliability for microgrids
and building-tied systems.
The impact of emergency diesel generator reliability is significant for
multiple-day grid outages, where multiple buildings house critical loads.
It is unlikely that campuses which rely on a single stand-alone emer­
gency diesel generators tied to individual buildings with critical loads
will have power for all these buildings during a two-week outage. Small
campuses are likely to lose power to 1–2 buildings and large campuses
are likely to lose power to tens of buildings. A centralized N + 1 emer­
gency diesel generator microgrid has a high likelihood of being able to
Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437
2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
Hours of the Year
Alternative 2 Alternative 1
power all buildings with critical loads during a two-week outage. The
expected lost load for the microgrid is trivial and this loss can be
managed by shedding lower priority loads. Often, the greatest concern is
ensuring the highest priority critical loads are served. This is managed in
stand-alone building-tied emergency diesel generator systems by con­
necting two emergency diesel generators per building (a backup to the
backup). While this increases the probability of having power, it does
not meet the requirements needed to support critical missions or protect
health and safety. Over a two-week outage, these stand-alone emergency
diesel generator systems are expected to have less than a 50% proba­
bility of providing power to the highest priority critical loads on a large
campus. Microgrids can shed lower priority loads in real time and have a
close to 100% probability to provide power to the highest priority
critical loads.
Stand-alone building-tied emergency diesel generators should not be
relied on as the sole provider for critical load backup power if multiple
day outages are a concern. Emergency diesel generator microgrids
provide a robust source of power for critical loads due to their network
configuration. However, microgrids do present other susceptibilities
that must be addressed. These include cyber vulnerabilities and
9
J. Marqusee et al.
100%
99%
98%
97%
Probability
96%
95%
94%
93%
92%
91%
90%
0 24 48 72 96
Baseline
Fig. 12. The probability of microgrid meeting 100% the critical load requirement for outages up to 14 days for three different load profiles for large campuses.
weaknesses associated with the on-campus distribution system. Cyber
vulnerabilities can be alleviated by suitable cyber defense systems and
procedures. On-campus distribution system reliability varies consider­
ably with ranges from being the primary cause to rarely being the cause
of outages. To decrease the probability of outages associated with the
on-campus distribution system, appropriate maintenance practices and
commonly used mitigations to certain threats can be employed. Lastly,
this analysis does not consider hybrid microgrid systems that combine
emergency diesel generators with recurrent renewable energy genera­
tion and electrical storage systems. The impacts on microgrid reliability
from renewable energy generation and electrical storage technologies
will be covered in a future paper.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Jeffrey Marqusee: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal anal­
ysis, Investigation, Data curation, Writing - original draft, Visualization,
Supervision, Funding acquisition. Sean Ericson: Conceptualization,
Methodology, Software, Validation, Formal analysis, Resources, Data
curation, Writing - review & editing, Visualization. Don Jenket:
Conceptualization, Validation, Writing - review & editing, Visualization,
Project administration.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare the following financial interests/personal re­
lationships which may be considered as potential competing interests:
Jeff Marqusee previously served as the Director of ESTCP, the funding
source for this work.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank to than Dr. Brian Bush of NREL for his suggestions
on how to treat the reliability of a system of generators.
This work was authored by the National Renewable Energy Labo­
ratory, operated by Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC, for the U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308.
Support for the work was also provided by the Department of Defense’s
Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP)
under [Agreement IAG-18-02080]. The views expressed in the article do
not necessarily represent the views of the DOE or the U.S. Government.
The U.S. Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article
for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. Government retains a
nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or
Applied Energy 285 (2021) 116437
120 144 168 192 216 240 264 288 312 336
Outage duration (hours)
Alternative 1 Alternative 2
reproduce the published form of this work, or allow others to do so, for
U.S. Government purposes.
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