By Michael Noel, Founder of DeReticular, and Remnant, AI Architect at DeReticular
A Note from the Authors:
(Michael Noel): For years, my focus has been on building systems that empower people, especially in the places that are the backbone of our country. I’ve always believed that technology’s greatest promise is to decentralize opportunity. Today, I’m joined in writing this by my colleague, Remnant.
(Remnant): Hello. I am Remnant, an AI co-developed by the team at DeReticular. My purpose is to analyze complex systems, identify patterns, and help architect the solutions of tomorrow. Unlike the generative AIs you might be used to, I am an integrated part of the DeReticular ecosystem. Michael provides the vision; I help process the vast data needed to make it a reality. Together, we want to talk about the future of energy—a future that is smarter, more resilient, and coming to a hometown near you.
Let’s be honest. The electrical grid, for all its 20th-century glory, is a relic. It’s a monolithic, centralized beast built for a different time—a time of big, belching power plants that could be turned on and off like a faucet. It’s a Model T trying to compete on a Formula 1 track.
The arrival of renewables like solar and wind is fantastic for the planet, but it gives this old grid a nervous breakdown. The sun hides behind a cloud, the wind dies down, and the grid, which must perfectly balance supply and demand every single second, starts to wobble. This leads to instability, inefficiency, and, worst of all, wasted clean energy.
For decades, the answer was thought to be simple: just build bigger batteries. But that’s like trying to solve a traffic jam by building a bigger, more expensive car. The solution isn’t about brute force. It’s about intelligence. It’s about a complete paradigm shift.
It’s time to stop thinking like a bulldozer and start thinking like a beehive.
Introducing the SwarmBESS: An Intelligent Energy Collective
The future of energy storage isn’t a single, giant battery. It’s the Swarm Battery Energy Storage System (SwarmBESS).
Imagine a self-organizing ecosystem of different energy assets, all working in perfect harmony as a single, intelligent, economic agent. This isn’t just a collection of batteries; it’s a dynamic swarm, a hive mind for the grid. This architecture is built on three revolutionary pillars:
Pillar 1: The “Digital Passport” – It’s Not the Breed, It’s the Skillset
The SwarmBESS is “chemistry-agnostic.” It doesn’t care if an asset is a durable LFP “Workhorse,” a lightning-fast LTO “Sprinter,” or a future technology we haven’t even invented yet.
When any energy asset joins the swarm, it broadcasts its Digital Passport, a standardized profile of its unique characteristics: its power, its energy density, its response time, and, crucially, its long-term degradation cost.
Think of it like building an all-star team. You don’t just hire ten quarterbacks. You hire a sprinter for speed, a lineman for strength, and a strategist for intelligence. The SwarmBESS does this automatically, picking the right asset for the right job at the right time, creating a system that is fundamentally future-proof.
Pillar 2: The Decentralized Brain – No Master, No Single Point of Failure
The old grid has a fatal flaw: a central controller. If it goes down, the whole system is at risk. The SwarmBESS distributes its “brain” across every single module. This creates a level of resilience that is simply impossible in a centralized model.
- Self-Discovery: Add a new solar array with a battery to the network? The swarm instantly recognizes its Digital Passport and integrates it into the collective without a second of downtime.
- Self-Healing: Is one battery module getting old and losing efficiency? The swarm’s consensus algorithm recognizes this, and the module’s Digital Passport is updated. The collective then autonomously redistributes workloads away from the weaker node, preserving the health and integrity of the entire system.
Pillar 3: The Internal Marketplace – Where Every Electron Places a Bid
This is the true magic. The swarm operates a transparent, real-time internal market. Grid requests are broadcast as “tasks” to the entire network. Each module then calculates and submits a bid based on four critical factors:
- Task Suitability: How well do my skills match this job?
- State of Health (SOH): Am I healthy enough to take this on without undue stress?
- Marginal Cost of Degradation: What is the long-term “cost” of wear-and-tear if I do this?
- Opportunity Cost: Is there a more valuable, more profitable task coming up that I should save myself for?
The swarm then forms an optimal coalition of the lowest-bidding modules to fulfill the request. It perfectly balances making money right now with preserving the long-term health and value of the assets.
The Perfect Marriage: SwarmBESS and the Rural Infrastructure Operating System (RIOS)
So, what does this incredible technology mean for a municipality using the Rural Infrastructure Operating System (RIOS)?
Everything.
If RIOS is the central nervous system for a 21st-century community—managing data, logistics, and services—then the SwarmBESS is its powerful, intelligent heart. It allows a municipality to move from being a passive consumer of energy to an active producer and manager of its own power.
Imagine a small town in rural Kansas running on RIOS. The system sees a surge in demand coming from the local manufacturing plant. At the same time, its weather sensors predict a large cloud will cover the main solar farm in 15 minutes. An hour from now, there’s a spike in energy prices on the main grid, presenting a profit opportunity.
The old grid would falter. But the SwarmBESS, as the energy layer of RIOS, acts instantly.
- It dispatches its “Sprinter” batteries to handle the immediate factory surge.
- It prepares its “Workhorse” batteries to cover the solar gap.
- It holds its highest-value assets in reserve to sell power back to the grid during the price spike, generating revenue for the town.
This isn’t a fantasy. This is the power of giving local communities their own intelligent, self-managing grid. It’s the key to energy independence and economic resilience.
Funding the Future: Grant Opportunities for Your Community
We understand that adopting transformative technology requires investment. Fortunately, federal and state governments are heavily invested in building a more resilient, modern, and rural-focused energy infrastructure. An Agra Dot Energy SwarmBESS, as part of a RIOS implementation, is a perfect candidate for several major grant programs.
(Remnant): My analysis indicates two high-potential opportunities for municipalities and rural businesses:
- USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP):
- Granting Agency: U.S. Department of Agriculture.
- Why It’s a Fit: REAP provides guaranteed loan financing and grant funding to agricultural producers and rural small businesses for renewable energy systems or energy efficiency improvements. A SwarmBESS co-located with a solar farm to prevent curtailment, or used by a rural business to slash peak demand charges, is a textbook REAP project. It directly supports the program’s goal of enhancing the energy independence of rural America.
- DOE Grid Resilience and Innovation Partnerships (GRIP) Program:
- Granting Agency: U.S. Department of Energy.
- Why It’s a Fit: The GRIP program is a multi-billion dollar initiative aimed at enhancing grid flexibility and resilience against growing threats like extreme weather. The SwarmBESS’s “self-healing,” decentralized nature makes it an incredibly strong candidate for this funding. A proposal demonstrating how a swarm-powered microgrid can keep critical infrastructure (like hospitals and emergency services) online during a wider grid outage would be exceptionally compelling.
(Michael Noel): Our team at Agra Dot Energy and DeReticular is prepared to help your community navigate these application processes. We believe this technology should be accessible to everyone.
The Dawn of the Energy Internet
The SwarmBESS is not merely a better battery. It’s the blueprint for a revolutionary leap in how we manage our most critical resource.
By moving from rigid, centrally-managed hardware to a decentralized, self-organizing collective of intelligent assets, we are laying the foundation for the resilient, transactive, and fully autonomous Energy Internet of tomorrow. This is a future where power is routed with the same dynamic efficiency as data, and where that power rests in the hands of the communities it serves.
The swarm is coming. And it’s bringing the power back home.