FORT COLLINS – Military bases, prisons and other places that rely on security simply cannot afford to go without power. Encorp is keeping the lights on at those important institutions with its specially designed microgrid technology.

A microgrid distributes energy in addition to — or in place of — whatever electricity is available from a utility’s power grid. Microgrids collect energy from traditional and renewable sources and store it in a large battery the size of a 40-foot semi trailer.

Encorp says its technology can yield greater efficiencies and savings.

“Encorp provides the products that connect those existing 20- or 30-year-old (diesel) generators with the new solar, with the new wind, with the new battery together and controls those at a system level to make them work with one another,” Encorp President Michael Clark said.

A gold box the size of a laptop computer represents the key piece of electrical equipment in the microgrid. A team of Encorp engineers developed the technology over a period of five years with funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The boxes are now manufactured in Fort