Microgrid bill OK’d by House committee

Research for helping rural communities

WASHINGTON — The House moved forward a bill that would establish $ 5 million in federal grants for the expansion of large- scale energy storage and microgrid technology, an area of growing research in the Pittsburgh region in recent years.

The Expanding Access to Sustainable Energy Act, sponsored by Rep. Conor Lamb, DMt. Lebanon, was one of 38 bills to clear the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday during a markup hearing. The eight- hour hearing, which allowed members to amend and debate legislation, was likely the last markup before the Nov. 3 elections.

The funding is aimed at helping rural communities produce their own reliable and clean electricity through microgrids, which are essentially miniature power systems that are separate from the larger power grid and fueled most often by solar panels. The $ 5 million in funding would be available only to rural electric cooperatives or nonprofits that work with them.

Engineers at the University of Pittsburgh have studied the technology for years, starting an electric grid research institute in 2016 and building a power grid laboratory in the Energy Innovation Center. Duquesne Light, the Downtown-based electric utility, has worked with Pitt and city officials to explore microgrids in several neighborhoods.

In 2016, Pitt launched a partnership in India to build solarpowered microgrids in rural villages that lacked electricity while bringing in Indian technology and expertise to help construct a microgrid project in Homewood.

The bill was unanimously approved by the committee on Wednesday, making it highly likely it will pass the full House in the coming days. The prospects are dimmer that it will pass the Republicancontrolled Senate, unless it is attached to a

must- pass spending bill before the end of September.

The bill is bipartisan: Mr. Lamb, who sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, originally sponsored the bill with another Democrat and two Republicans.

The Energy and Commerce Committee also passed legislation drawn up in a subcommittee run by Rep. Mike Doyle, D- Forest Hills, focused on communications and technology.

The committee unanimously approved three bills that would:

• Provide tax incentives for broadcast station sales to or investment in stations owned and controlled by socially disadvantaged individuals.

• Require the Federal Communications Commission to review its broadcast and cable equal employment opportunity rules and to begin to create a public, searchable database of broadcast ownership data.

• Prohibit voice service providers from reassigning phone numbers of subscribers in areas covered by a major disaster declaration until that designation is lifted. It also prohibits companies from assessing early termination fees to cancel service, or connection fees to resubscribe at a new address, for subscribers whose residence is rendered inaccessible or uninhabitable due to a major disaster.