Inside America’s Most Forward-Thinking Energy County

About this episode

The episode discusses Montgomery County's innovative approach to energy management and microgrid development.

Montgomery County, Maryland — located just outside Washington, D.C. — has emerged as one of the most ambitious local governments in the United States when it comes to distributed energy, microgrids, and clean power resilience. Since its first microgrid went online in 2018, the county has built out a portfolio of advanced installations at public safety facilities, a correctional facility, electric bus depots, and smaller community sites. Now, with 23 “resilient hub” microgrids under development and plans to produce on-site green hydrogen for its transit fleet, Montgomery County is redefining what local energy leadership looks like. In this conversation, host Elisa Wood sits down with two key architects of this vision: Michael Yambrach, Chief of Montgomery County’s Office of Energy and Sustainability, who has overseen the county’s energy evolution since 2014; and Khaled Fakhuri, Senior Vice President of Schneider Electric’s Microgrid Business, the county’s long-term development partner. Together, they unpack how the county got here, how the public-private partnership model works, and what the future of microgrids looks like at local, national, and even data-center scale

People in this episode

Host: Elisa Wood

Guests: Michael Yambrach, Khaled Fakhuri

Topics covered

• distributed energy
• microgrids
• clean power
• public-private partnership
• energy resilience

Keywords

• Montgomery County
• microgrids
• clean energy
• resilience
• public-private partnership
• green hydrogen
• energy leadership

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Montgomery County’s Office of Energy and Sustainability, Schneider Electric

Places: Montgomery County, Maryland

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