Bloomberg recently reported a story about a microgrid in Puerto Rico, which became a lifeline for the community.

The small town of Castañer built a micro-grid comprising 121 solar panels spread across three rooftops feeding a bank of industrial batteries and inverters. Before the microgrid went into service in May 2022, constant outages and voltage fluctuations that damaged electronic equipment made it difficult for a small bakery and other businesses that are now part of the microgrid to make their pastries or cut their customers’ hair.

Now, these businesses are connected to micro-grid, which deliver reliable and fixed-price power.

The Solar Arrays of the Micro-Grid in Castañer, Puerto Rico. Photo: Bloomberg

A microgrid is a network of businesses, homes, or both, usually in a tight geographic area, that creates power locally and can function independently from the larger grid. Typically, a microgrid covers a housing development, a military base, or a campus.

A nanogrid like YouSolar’s PowerBloc is a “microgrid for one house.” However, the PowerBloc can also create a mesh microgrid where multiple PowerBlocs interconnect over a direct current power line. Such a microgrid is even more resilient than the microgrid in Castañer which has a central battery bank and inverter.

The Castañer microgrid is a success story. Independent power systems like this micro-grid point the way to the future of power.

An independent power system which also includes nano-grids like the PowerBloc is not off-grid system, although they can be, but integrated with the grid, but no longer dependent on the grid.

The future of power is the decentralization of energy production and power produced locally. The power grid then becomes an energy grid. The result is reliable, cleaner, and cheaper electricity.

Power on, Castañer!