Today’s changemakers know that they are at their most powerful when boosting the strengths of their partners, customers and end users. They also realize that their solutions must stay useful in the long-run – a process which increasingly involves designing for modularity.

What is modularity?

Modularity means that something can be easily broken down into smaller parts and combined in a different, perhaps more practical manner. It can be applied to anything from sustainable housing – where building modules are designed so that resources can be easily removed and reused when the building is deconstructed – to smartphones like the Fairphone, which can be taken apart by the user and repaired or upgraded in a stronger way.

Modularity and renewable energy generation

Solar energy generation can be modular – with single rooftop solar panels or massive- scale integrated solar power plants that power cities. China’s Tengger Solar Park has around 4 million panels.Beyond the physical realm, modularity in areas like software development becomes very interesting for connecting renewable energy ecosystems. In particular, leaders are seeking to efficiently and safely connect Internet of Things platforms with the IT systems of established energy providers. This is with a view to creating smart grids that require flexible solutions which can nimbly adapt to changing needs and a wide array of different system types.

Modular software architecture

Software applications that are developed as a suite of small, modular services, like the micro-service architecture offered by Kiwigrid, can be independently deployed and tweaked, letting companies rapidly switch or alter services during updates, instead of redeploying entire applications.As well as allowing for the evolution of nascent systems, such modular software architecture ensures high reusability of its valuable software components, a rapid time-to-market for the most disruptive of opportunities and the flexibility to address a wide range of customer segments, platforms and applications in the new, distributed and digitized energy world.

Modularity and Kiwigrid

Kiwigrid’s technology is modular. It is designed with micro-service architecture, meaning that software applications are developed as a suite of independent, small, modular services. Each of these services can be tweaked or updated without interrupting the entire system.

Explore KiwiOS, the technical backbone for achieving modularity, in detail.