A grid is just a means of distributing energy between areras of high potential and areas of low potential. It is an improvement over the unconnected providers that powered towns and cities in the beginnning of the electrification movement. It is Bucky Fuller's contention, and I think I agree with him, that we should have a planetary grid, to take advantage of the fact that parts of the planet are always at dead-low demand (i.e. sleeping)and stabilize irregular supplies. But NOT, as has been recently demonstrated, with a domino-like dependency between nodes.