How the Moon, Mars, and Antarctica Expose Our Grid Blind Spots
It’s a fallacy that ranks among the longstanding utility sector sins: “But we’ve always done it this way.”
Any business that continues with a practice simply because it’s familiar is already falling behind. This tendency leads to lazy thinking, uninspired problem-solving, and missed opportunities in the fast-changing modern energy landscape.
Observers have called out this tendency to stick to entrenched systems for years. When I talk to utility leaders, I often hear quiet acknowledgement that the sector practices a “race to second place”—they generally don’t want to be the ones breaking new ground. But once another utility crosses that new territory? They want in.
This approach to innovation is inherently limiting. This thought struck me as I recently watched the Artemis II mission take off my back porch (one of the benefits of living under an hour from the Kennedy Space Center).
Not only was I inspired by the space program’s ability to imagine the impossible and shoot for the (literal) stars, but my mind also gravitated towards energy systems. How will we sustain power systems on those eventual lunar settlements enabled by Artemis?
One thing is certain: Those systems will not be designed around the constraints of “this is how we’ve always done it.”
And that sparked a broader thought experiment: Where in the world (or universe) are energy generation and transmission systems being built without the baggage of legacy assumptions? And what can we learn from them?
Going from the least to most remote…
Non-electrified regions of Africa
Current practices:
Across Africa, 600 million people remain without access to electricity.Without power, these communities are held back from the next modernization leaps.
Efforts to power these regions have drawn significant international investment, and for years the default approach was replicating what works in modernized economies: Grid expansion and integration. But doing so creates economic, engineering, and regulatory challenges.
So developers are also integrating mini-grids and standalone systems. These tools are increasingly seen as complementary, each with its own role to play in a blend of solutions built around hyper-local realities.