Ecosphere’s Ecos PowerCube has been awarded US Patent No. 8,593,102 by the United States Patent & Trademark Office. The device is a portable, self-contained micro-utility that uses solar power to provide electricity in the most remote, off-grid locations. It was designed to help meet the growing demand for off-grid energy and incorporates an array of stacked solar panels in order to maximise the total amount of solar power generation possible in 10', 20' and 40' standard ISO shipping container footprints.
The system has power generation capabilities up to 15KW and can be transported by land, air or sea. It is ideally suited to support off-grid military, disaster relief, humanitarian and mobile communication operations and can be used to power various on-board systems, including satellite communications, Internet connectivity, and mobile water treatment systems. The system can also be used to supply military or disaster relief teams with life-sustaining, mobile infrastructure modules, such as hospitals, command centers, sleeping quarters, and temporary schools. Unlike conventional solar power arrays, the solar modules can be retracted in order to protect them from inclement weather or hostile environments prevalent in war zones.
The US Army in particular is embracing renewable energy because of the casualty rate involved in protecting fuel convoys. It is therefore very interested in embracing renewables in order to protect American soldiers. In May 2013, the Army announced plans to spend $7 billion buying electricity generated by solar, wind, geothermal and biomass projects over the next three decades. Its target is 1GW installed renewable capacity in the US by 2020 and it is also aiming to reduce non-tactical fuel consumption by 30 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.
“A fuel tanker can be shot at and blown up” explained Richard Kidd, the deputy assistant secretary of the Army in charge of energy security, in a recent interview. “The sun's rays will still be there. With renewable energy, there is no supply chain vulnerability, there are no commodity costs and there's a lower chance of disruption.”
According to Dennis McGuire, Chairman and CEO of Ecosphere Technologies, the PowerCube addresses significant infrastructure deficiencies in remote field camp installations or when responding to large-scale disasters. Consistent with the company’s business model, Ecosphere are seeking to license the PowerCube to a wide range of entities, including branches of the U.S. and global armed forces, as well as corporations that provide equipment for the military and a wide variety of disaster relief agencies worldwide.
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