--- title: How Cascadia Renewables Is Growing Their Microgrid Business with Xendee description: Cascadia Renewables is scaling its microgrid business by using Xendee to move from manual solar-plus-storage designs to optimized, multi-technology microgrids that are faster to model, fundable, and aligned with real-world resilience and community goals. image: https://xendee.com/hubfs/thumbnail-cascadia-renewables-1.jpg --- [Skip to the main content.](https://xendee.com/insights/how-cascadia-renewables-is-growing-their-microgrid-business#main-content) **[Watch Sessions from Xendee University Week 2026 | A Community-Driven Virtual Event for Microgrid and DER Professionals](https://xendee.com/xendee-university-week)**   [Watch Recordings](https://xendee.com/xendee-university-week) [![XENDEE](https://xendee.com/hs-fs/hubfs/XENDEE.png?width=1094&height=140&name=XENDEE.png "XENDEE")](https://xendee.com) [![Dark Logo](https://xendee.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Dark%20Logo.png?width=414&height=66&name=Dark%20Logo.png "Dark Logo")](https://xendee.com) - 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This methodology was born in their roots as off-grid solar and storage designers and installers.  However, the CR team kept encountering client goals that couldn’t be met with PV and batteries alone. That realization pushed them to shift from framing their work around products to start framing it around problems and outcomes. Through this process it became obvious that the solutions their clients needed exist within a much larger ecosystem—utilities, communities, local governments, businesses, and emergency managers—each occupying the same physical and electrical space, but each trying to solve different challenges on different timelines. Shifting from thinking in terms of “solar + storage”  to thinking in terms of microgrids opened up this systems-level view. *“We came from the residential and commercial solar side of the industry and have been moving into the microgrid space.  What Xendee is doing allows customers, developers, and installers to make that switch.”  - Markus Virta, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Cascadia Renewables* #### From Manual Analysis to Advanced Modeling CR’s initial approach provided them a strong baseline, but it couldn’t fully capture the nonlinear relationships among solar variability, generator runtime, competing prioritization of grid demands and resilience goals, and evolving load patterns. That’s where Xendee, a leading microgrid optimization and techno-economic modeling platform, entered the process. Working alongside [MZ Solar Consulting](http://www.mzsolarconsulting.com), Cascadia was able to use Xendee to translate their preliminary microgrid system architectures into full simulation environments. *“Tools like Xendee accelerate that shift to solving complex, multi-stakeholder energy problems with flexible, resilient, and future-proof solutions. They force a designer to consider how multiple technologies can be combined, controlled, and optimized across a range of operating scenarios.” -* Callum McSherry, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, Cascadia Renewables #### Why Optimization Matters Optimization isn’t just about performance; it’s about credibility. Funders, utilities, and permitting agencies increasingly expect microgrid proposals to demonstrate modeled performance data aligned with both safety and programmatic metrics.  ![callum-mcsherry-testimonial-2](https://xendee.com/hs-fs/hubfs/callum-mcsherry-testimonial-2.jpg?width=800&height=393&name=callum-mcsherry-testimonial-2.jpg) By integrating Xendee into their workflow, Cascadia Renewables can deliver feasibility studies that are technically rigorous, investment-ready, and rooted in community goals. When data, design, and community needs align, resilience stops being theoretical; it becomes measurable. #### **Growing Cascadia’s Microgrid Business** Cascadia Renewables has now completed over 100 detailed feasibility studies with Xendee as the core engine behind their microgrid design and optimization process. They currently have 20 microgrid implementation projects in various stages of development—all of them optimized through the Xendee platform. ![markus-virta-testimonial-2](https://xendee.com/hs-fs/hubfs/markus-virta-testimonial-2.jpg?width=800&height=393&name=markus-virta-testimonial-2.jpg) Collectively, these projects represent more than 10 MWh of battery storage, 2 MW of solar PV, and multiple backup and prime-power generators, each paired with advanced microgrid controls. Every system configuration, operating mode, and dispatch strategy has been informed by Xendee’s optimization environment, ensuring technically sound, cost-effective, and grid-aware designs from the outset. ![Data-Callout-Cascadia-Testimonial-Blog](https://xendee.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Data-Callout-Cascadia-Testimonial-Blog.jpg?width=900&height=248&name=Data-Callout-Cascadia-Testimonial-Blog.jpg) At Cascadia Renewables, optimization isn’t an afterthought; it’s the bridge between a concept and a buildable, fundable project.   | ## The Orcas Center Case Study When CR began designing the Orcas Center microgrid, they already knew the project had to deliver two kinds of value: operational efficiency during normal conditions and energy autonomy during extended outages. Achieving both simultaneously required more than static load calculations. It demanded dynamic, data-driven simulation. ![orca-project-case-study](https://xendee.com/hs-fs/hubfs/orca-project-case-study.png?width=960&height=720&name=orca-project-case-study.png) #### Scenario Development and Simulation Using Xendee, MZ Solar Consulting worked with the CR team to understand the client’s goals and model dozens of operational scenarios: • Seasonal solar production and autonomy: How the system performs through long winter nights and bright summer days. • Critical load survivability: How long essential services could remain powered under sustained outages. • Generator coordination: How much runtime and fuel storage were required to meet resilience targets. • Dispatch strategies: How different control logics—cost optimization versus resilience optimization—affected long-term system value. Each run produced hourly performance data for an entire year, allowing CR to test assumptions rapidly and refine the system configuration. --- #### Results That Inform Real-World Design This iterative process condensed what would normally take weeks of manual iteration into days. More importantly, it produced actionable design intelligence. The final model confirmed: • 133.98 kW DC / 100 kW AC solar PV • 150 kW / 1,376 kWh battery energy storage • 150 kW generator with defined runtime requirements By quantifying both economic and resilience outcomes, CR could right-size the system—not over-build it for rare events, and not under-design it for real emergencies. | | --- | [Schedule a Discovery Call](https://xendee.com/demo) *The Xendee team has invested nearly 100,000 hours in microgrid design, engineering, and modeling for more than 600 organizations. Our work is backed by more than 200 peer-reviewed studies, and we continue to contribute to the research shaping the future of distributed energy.*    - [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share) [![New Market Survey from Xendee Reveals DER Developers are Shifting Project Focus Amidst Federal Funding Losses](https://xendee.com/hubfs/2026-market-survey-press-release-thumbnail-1.jpg)](https://xendee.com/insights/2026-microgrid-market-report-press-release) #### [New Market Survey from Xendee Reveals DER Developers are Shifting Project Focus Amidst Federal Funding Losses](https://xendee.com/insights/2026-microgrid-market-report-press-release) Despite funding losses, developers remain bullish due to increasing electricity demands and the availability of cost-effective solutions like... [Announcements](https://xendee.com/insights/tag/announcements) [Read More](https://xendee.com/insights/2026-microgrid-market-report-press-release) [![Xendee Releases 2024 Commercial EV Charging Survey Insights](https://xendee.com/hubfs/survey-report.png)](https://xendee.com/insights/xendee-releases-2024-commercial-ev-charging-survey-insights) #### [Xendee Releases 2024 Commercial EV Charging Survey Insights](https://xendee.com/insights/xendee-releases-2024-commercial-ev-charging-survey-insights) Worries rise About limitations to commercial EV growth, but government incentives and microgrids move charging infrastructure forward. [Announcements](https://xendee.com/insights/tag/announcements) [Read More](https://xendee.com/insights/xendee-releases-2024-commercial-ev-charging-survey-insights) [![Xendee, Converge Strategies, RMI, and Barrett Energy Launch Free Airport Microgrid Toolkit to Strengthen Operational Resilience and Reduce Carbon](https://xendee.com/hubfs/airport-micrgrid-800x450.jpg)](https://xendee.com/insights/airport-microgrid-implementation-toolkit) #### [Xendee, Converge Strategies, RMI, and Barrett Energy Launch Free Airport Microgrid Toolkit to Strengthen Operational Resilience and Reduce Carbon](https://xendee.com/insights/airport-microgrid-implementation-toolkit) The Project Team has launched a new Airport Microgrid Toolkit designed to expedite the transition of airports to secure on-site Microgrids and DERs. 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