What is Mobile Clean Energy, LLC?

Mobile Clean Energy, LLC (MCE) was created to manage a market that is desperately needed, but does not yet exist. Current jargon would describe it as a Battery as a Service (BaaS) operator, but even saying that it manages a network that supplies really big utility scale batteries— leases the batteries and charges a fee to swap discharged batteries with fully charged ones — would fall short.

It was conceived as an opportunity to short-circuit the Grid — connect generation to demand, with modular containers of energy without enduring delays and expense associated with grid permitting or queues.

Localizing and right sizing with a global perspective.

The Grid is neither Smart, Clean, nor nimble. It has coasted for 20 years of flat demand but actually it faces more than 40 years where maintenance and scheduled replacement was deferred. It is suddenly facing exponential growth.

The Myth: The Grid Shall Provide, has become Group Think.

• Total reliance on the grid is not strategic.

• Expecting the grid to be Smart anytime soon is tragic.

• Expecting the grid to handle the energy transition and save the climate is hopium.

As a nation, as a global community, a single delivery option for an existential resource is unsustainable.


“The US transmission quagmire shows little sign of changing. The US plans to electrify a lot… Unfortunately, the US grid is a slowly-changing morass that’s already struggling to incorporate more renewables as traditional generation capacity is retired. US transmission infrastructure has been growing at just 2% per year…. Some projections now estimate just 1% transmission growth to the year 2030.”
2022 Eye on the Market Energy Paper, Michael Cembalest, Chairman of Market and Investment Strategy JP Morgan Asset Management

The Grid as the only source is finally being questioned with the advent of AI Data Centers with massive energy demand, “need it yesterday” schedule, and virtually unlimited budgets.

1 “The megawatt that we don’t need to generate [or transmit or distribute] is just as important, if not more important, than the megawatt we do”. Thomas Gleeson Chairman of the Texas PUC.

2 Every megawatt of new demand on the grid requires the most expensive form of generation on the grid to remain active. This is typically the oldest most polluting generation that one really wants to retire.

Combine these two and MCE begins to be obvious.




• There are new energy demands that have never been on the grid and are best if kept off of it.

• An opportunity to benefit the Grid and create a new multi-billion dollar market.

Transportation energy is in this category but many segments are difficult to balance, rate of demand growth, with scaling generation, and delivery infrastructure.

Freight Rail in North America is a natural opportunity to scale infrastructure as rapidly as supply chain and market/network can economically manage.

Class 1 Railroads’ functional operations are 100% dependent on Diesel.

They consume 3.2B gallons of diesel annually at $8-12B energy cost to generate 132GWh daily for internal off-grid use — ie. Locomotives.

Mobile Clean Energy, LLC is building a new market. Creating a pathway for Freight Rail in North America to transition to zero emissions is our opportunity to scale.

Every Diesel Electric Locomotive is an electric locomotive. Add an interchangeable, intermodal container, battery tender and it becomes a zero emissions capable hybrid — meeting California Regulations and future proofing for the rest of the continent. However the power conversion unit in the locomotives will require an upgrade allowing it to handle:
⁃ battery input,
⁃ regeneration charging,
⁃ charging from the diesel generator, and a
⁃ power output plug allowing plug N play with substations and micro-grids.

The concept behind Mobile Clean Energy is simple. Develop/Generate clean energy to charge batteries and deliver the batteries to the Demand Load — being off-grid avoids months/years of permitting queues and saves the grid unnecessary capacity; providing the space for it to become smart and clean.

• MCE wishes to develop and operate the market, not be an OEM for the parts and pieces.

• “Grid Think” has hobbled the global response to zero carbon emissions.

• Mobile Clean Energy offers an alternative energy distribution option