Do we need The Grid, part 2

It was only yesterday that I wrote: Do we need The Grid?
And today we hear the news: 
Argentina and Uruguay reel after massive power outage

So do we really need the grid? Many of you might think: "You can't be serious". We cannot survive without the grid! But this is exactly my point - we cannot survive without it TODAY! We are slaves of the big monster - The Grid. Do we have to be? As I stated many times before - we don't. We can generate energy where we need it and get rid of grid. Well, may be not immediately. But why not to do it incrementally? There lots of places on Earth without grid, and there millions of people who don't have power. We can start generating energy there instead of pulling hundreds or thousands of kilometers of power lines of fuel pipelines.

What if - a heretical thought - when power grid goes down we don't bring it back, but instead we bring energy generation right where it needs to be? It may not even cost more than restoring the old grid and waiting until it fails again, or somebody decides to cause it to fail.

The technology is here - it is called distributed autonomous generation. All what needs to be done is to combine state-of-the art solar thermal collector with an ultra-efficient thermal energy storage and an energy booster under proper control. We have done it at Ascent Systems Technologies. We even packaged it in a self-contained module that can be delivered on demand to any geographical location in the world, deployed within hours and start delivering uninterrupted clean energy.

Autonomous Mobile Energy Station

Do we need The Grid?

The New York Times reported that U.S. Escalates Online Attacks on Russia's Power Grid in response to their incursion into American grids and networks. Is it the right thing to do?

Advocates of the more aggressive strategy said it was long overdue, after years of public warnings from the Department of Homeland Security and the F.B.I. that Russia has inserted malware that could sabotage American power plants, oil and gas pipelines, or water supplies in any future conflict with the United States.

The grid is the most complex system humans ever created. With complexity comes vulnerability and not only to malicious attacks, but also to technical failures and accidents caused by natural factors such as solar flare or earthquake. It is time to start moving away from the grid as we started moving away from fossil fuels.

We have the technology. The on-demand distributed energy generation would revolutionize the way energy is delivered. It combines solar energy collector, ultra-efficient energy storage and an auxiliary energy booster in one seamlessly integrated system. The "brain" of the system is advanced software utilizing real-time performance and environment data, model-predictive control algorithms and machine learning techniques. The system can be also packaged as an autonomous module which can be delivered anywhere in the world in order to respond to a natural disaster, or provide energy for research, exploration and military operations, as well as remote outposts. The system capacity can be easily scaled up by combining multiple modules into an array. No need for the grid, no need for fuels, no pollution. Clean, reliable secure energy when you need it where you need it!

Ascent Systems Technologies: autonomous mobile energy system