Switches in every new home, transformer and power line let the grid split into islands of any size, from 1 home to 300. Each island runs on its own solar, batteries and EVs, then rejoins the grid when it's safe.
Pick a situation. Each color is one island; gold is grid power.
Every roof has solar. Bar: home battery. Diamond: EV that can share. Box by each transformer: its 50 kWh island battery, with a red tick at the 10 kWh floor. Tap any switch for its readings.
Tap a switch or a home on the diagram.
Batteries earn money by selling stored solar when power is scarcest, but each one always holds some back for outages.
California's code already calls for it on new homes. It runs islands by day and refills batteries.
The owner keeps a backup reserve and is paid the scarcity price for what they sell.
Need a car and charger that can send power back. The charger stops at the owner's 40% reserve.
50 kWh for about 15 homes. A locked floor for emergencies; the rest buys cheap and sells at peak.
Peak prices hit on the hottest evenings, when outages are likeliest, so on Flex Alert or fire-weather days the floor rises to 30 kWh.
Why owners join: scarce power pays more. California home solar exports earn about 5¢ per kWh at midday and up to $3.32 on the scarcest September evenings.
Who owns what: islands use the utility's wires, so the utility owns the bigger nodes and island batteries (in LA, the city-owned LADWP). Battery income repays the hardware, then lowers bills.
The grid fails at 9 PM, after the evening sell-off. Heat wave, no sun until 6:30 AM, 12 of 30 home batteries working, each street on its own.
14 EVs is about 1 in 6 homes. Try it in the simulator's Settings.
The home node fits in the meter socket, like the meter collars utilities already approve. Bigger versions of the same board run the transformer, line and base switches.
New homes only. California already requires new homes to be battery-ready, with backup circuits, so the node adds little cost. On an older street, the node islands just that one home.
Same list at every size, for computer requests and the handle alike.
Limits from IEEE 1547 tighten as islands grow: 0.3 Hz, 10% and 20° under 500 kVA; 0.2 Hz, 5% and 15° up to 1.5 MVA; 0.1 Hz, 3% and 10° above that.
Most pieces already exist. What's new is fitting them together under one rule.
Our quick patent search found nothing specific on the padlock interlock, but it wasn't a formal search. The simulator checks the rules, not the electrical physics. Next: read the Tennessee and GridOn claims, model a feeder in OpenDSS, and build bench nodes.