With all the new advances that are taking place to create renewable power, the possibility of replacing the power grid has been a long talked about possibility. In fact, with some of the most recent advances in green energy, it is entirely possible that the need for the power grid is no longer a necessity. So, what new advances in green energy would exactly be responsible for replacing the power grid and can it actually happen?
The national power grid relies on lots of transformers and even more power lines, that make it necessary and possible to get a huge amount of energy from a single location out over hundreds of miles of distance and into tens of thousands of homes, businesses and public buildings. Because of this one reliance on a single location needed to power several thousand residences over a huge geographic location, the vulnerability of the power grid has been greatly discussed. Green energy that both, eliminated our dependence on this system and cleaned up our power production, would be an incredible advance.
To do this, green energy producers would have to be able to create an energy device that could both generate and deliver power locally, without a need for connecting to the main power source. Contained power cells, such as Bloom boxes, that use solar, wind and hydrogen together or individually, and can be placed outside of the building that they are meant to power are in the prototype phase. The more inventors and scientists work with these cells and the power they generate, the better the technology becomes and the closer we get to cutting our reliance on the national power grid.
Working in a similar way as the common science project solar powered remote control car or radio, each building, or few buildings, would require a wind or solar power source that was placed nearby. The renewable energy could then be created on site and directed straight into our appliances. Even though the cost of these new portable power generators can be extremely high, the long term cost to keep them and clean up our energy act is worth it.