Bullish on Smart-BEAR for Better Expeditionary Power Generation and Management

This is still in the development stages, so don't get too excited. But Lockheed's BEAR generator is proven, so it's not as big a leap as it might seem at first. This will be renewables supplementing diesel, plus power management, and together with storage, an enabler of a true tactical microgrid. From the press release:

Key ... capabilities include operating in both grid-tied and grid-independent modes. The system will independently sustain critical power loads when the primary grid is unavailable, supplementing conventional diesel generation with solar and wind power. The system is also designed for rapid deployment and will fit in standard shipping containers.

And with SkyBuilt as a partner for the mobile renewables integration and packaging, this indeed looks promising.Skybuilt may be familiar to long-time readers of this blog, and was first covered here back in 2008.

Here's the full release, and while we're at it, you can see the Air Force's own statement of objectives for this system right here. Oh, and here's why the base systems is called BEAR: it's actually "Basic Expeditionary Airfield Resources." Acronym writers working overtime .... When ready to field, hopefully the other services will get to try Smart BEARs as well.