（１）分布式電力存儲(chǔ)

????今天，我們的電力系統(tǒng)不能存儲(chǔ)它自身生產(chǎn)的電力。電力從電廠生產(chǎn)出來(lái)之后，必須馬上使用，或者導(dǎo)入地下。如果不馬上使用或?qū)氲叵?，隨著高功率電線與樹(shù)木和其他陸基物體的相互作用，電線就會(huì)變熱、松弛甚至開(kāi)始發(fā)生故障。這也是造成2003年大斷電的原因之一。由于電網(wǎng)中沒(méi)有任何存儲(chǔ)設(shè)備，因此一旦發(fā)生故障，也就沒(méi)有任何緩沖空間，整個(gè)系統(tǒng)就會(huì)像多米諾骨牌一樣迅速癱瘓。

????想象一下，一個(gè)沒(méi)有硬盤(pán)的計(jì)算機(jī)網(wǎng)絡(luò)是什么樣子——在這樣的網(wǎng)絡(luò)中，必須實(shí)時(shí)使用所有產(chǎn)生的數(shù)據(jù)，既不能存儲(chǔ)也不能收回任何數(shù)據(jù)。這顯然是個(gè)荒唐的網(wǎng)絡(luò)，但今天我們的電網(wǎng)恰恰就是這個(gè)樣子。

????把電力存儲(chǔ)到“硬盤(pán)”里歷來(lái)都是個(gè)非常昂貴的項(xiàng)目，而且電力部門(mén)也想避免任何可能會(huì)提高用戶費(fèi)率的項(xiàng)目。好消息是，電力存儲(chǔ)如今正變得越來(lái)越便宜，而且第一批商用電力存儲(chǔ)單元今年就將在全美范圍內(nèi)安裝了。

????安裝了這些電池后，無(wú)論是建筑物還是家庭都可以按更便宜的非峰值電價(jià)用電，因此幾年內(nèi)就可以充分證明自己的價(jià)值。另外，一旦發(fā)生自然災(zāi)難，這些電池還可以提供備用電源和線路調(diào)節(jié)功能，避免電器電路被燒壞。有了電池設(shè)備，我們無(wú)需使用汽油和柴油發(fā)電，也能享受這些好處。

????德州的普西迪小鎮(zhèn)就決定在它的電網(wǎng)中安裝電池系統(tǒng)，因?yàn)樗碾娋W(wǎng)與德州電網(wǎng)只靠一根線路連接。一家由AEP公司和伯克夏爾-哈撒韋公司（Berkshire Hathaway）旗下的中部美國(guó)能源（Mid-American Energy）出資建立的合資公司已經(jīng)為這個(gè)小鎮(zhèn)安裝了電池系統(tǒng)。

（２）分布式發(fā)電系統(tǒng)

????互聯(lián)網(wǎng)之所以如此繁榮，其中一個(gè)原因就是，它既在云端擁有龐大的數(shù)據(jù)中心，同時(shí)在每個(gè)用戶的電腦上又有分散的計(jì)算數(shù)據(jù)。這種組合使得用戶不管身在何處，不管每個(gè)網(wǎng)絡(luò)節(jié)點(diǎn)是否出了故障，都能照樣進(jìn)行生產(chǎn)活動(dòng)。因此亞馬遜（Amazon）、谷歌（Google）和蘋(píng)果（Apple）等企業(yè)可以一邊憑借云端服務(wù)，一邊憑借用戶下載在自己設(shè)備上的本地應(yīng)用，輕松地?cái)U(kuò)大業(yè)務(wù)。

????而電網(wǎng)是通過(guò)大型發(fā)電站進(jìn)行集中發(fā)電的，因此在用戶生活的地區(qū)，也就是電網(wǎng)的“邊緣地帶”，發(fā)電能力很有限。因此，這就催生了更多的潛在故障點(diǎn)，而不是一個(gè)能抵抗風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的系統(tǒng)，因?yàn)橐淮瓮蝗还收暇涂赡茉斐删W(wǎng)絡(luò)的一部分?jǐn)嚯姟?/p>

Distributed Electric Storage

????Our power system today cannot store the electricity it produces. Once electricity is generated at a plant, it must be used immediately or has to be grounded into the Earth. When it is not used and not grounded, high-capacity power lines heat up, sag and start faulting due to interaction with trees and other ground-based objects This is in part what caused the 2003 blackout. Since there is no storage of any scale in the utility grid, there is no buffer space when any kind of fault occurs and the system quickly shuts down in a domino effect.

????Imagine a computer network without hard drives -- a network where you had to use all data produced in real-time and could not store or retrieve any of it. That would be ludicrous, but it is the very system we have in our power grid.

????Storing the electricity we produce in the grid equivalent of hard drives was historically quite expensive and power authorities wanted to avoid any project that would raise customer rates. The good news is that electric storage is now getting cheaper and the first commercial storage units are being installed this year across the US.

????These batteries can pay for themselves in a few years by enabling buildings and homes to use cheaper, off-peak electricity. In case of a natural disaster, they also provide backup and line-conditioning to smooth out any spikes which can fry appliances and electronics. Battery storage gives us these benefits without the use of gasoline or diesel fuel.

????Presidio, Texas is a town that decided to install battery backup to its grid since it is tied to the rest of the Texas grid by only one line. A joint venture of AEP (AEP) and Berkshire Hathaway's Mid-American Energy (BRKA) installed the battery units.

Distributed Generation Systems

????One of the reasons the internet is so robust is that it has both large data centers in the cloud as well as distributed computing in every users' laptop or tablet. This combination allows any user to be productive no matter where they are and whether or not every network node is working or not. Amazon (AMZN), Goolge (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL) benefit from this robustness and can scale their businesses easily with both cloud-based services and local apps that users have on their own devices.

????While the power network has centralized generation in the form of large-scale power plants, it has limited ability to generate power at the edges where the users are. This creates more points of failure instead of a resilient system that can adapt to a sudden blow to one part of the network.