Energy honeycombs, or local energy hubs combining several types of generation with energy storage systems, appear to be the most effective sources of power supply in the absence of a general grid, RSE Group Ukraine director Hanna Pozdniakova has said.
"I’m drawn to the concept of energy honeycombs, that is, autonomous or semi-autonomous clusters in which critical infrastructure can keep operating even when the central grid is damaged," she wrote in a column for Interfax-Ukraine.
She said this means, technically, that different energy solutions should be designed not separately but as a single integrated system.
"For example, a local energy hub can combine cogeneration as a baseline source of electricity and heat, a BESS for storage and balancing, heat pumps for efficient heating, chillers for cooling, and mobile or diesel generation as an emergency backup," Pozdniakova explained.
She noted that all of this needs to be overseen by an automated control system that determines which sources to draw on at a given moment, which loads are critical, and where energy can be saved.
"If such a complex is properly designed, with the appropriate protection, automation, switching and sources capable of supporting a local grid, the facility can switch to island mode. In simple terms, in the event of an outage, it disconnects from the damaged external grid and continues to supply electricity and heat locally to critical processes," the RSE Group Ukraine director said, describing the advantages.
She stressed that this does not mean full energy independence under any circumstances, which not every business or community actually needs, but it does mean that an external outage does not automatically shut down the entire facility.
As reported, RSE s.r.o. is an international engineering company with its own production site in Brno, Czech Republic, specializing in solutions for energy resilience and decentralization. The company provides a full turnkey service cycle, from modular cogeneration plants and mobile power stations to industrial heat pumps (with a COP of up to 8) and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
