Lunar power system design is overwhelmingly capacity-centric: studies select generation technologies (solar, nuclear, hybrid) and size storage against eclipse duration, treating network topology as a secondary engineering detail. This structural silence persists despite the well-established result from terrestrial power systems that network topology — independent of total capacity — determines qualitatively different resilience and scalability regimes. We develop a topology-centric framework for lunar base energy systems, introduce a Named Binary distinguishing Capacity-Centric Energy Design (CCED) from Topology-Centric Energy Regime Design (TCERD), and derive the survivability metric S(a) and scalability metric K(a) as functions of network architecture rather than installed capacity. We formalise three archetypal energy regimes — Centralised Core (CEN), Distributed Microgrids (DMG), and Hybrid Core-plus-Microgrids (HYB) — and prove the existence of three topological threshold conditions: a redundancy threshold R* (minimum independent feeder count for life-critical loads), an islandability threshold I* (minimum local storage fraction for autonomous zone operation), and a growth threshold G* (maximum load density at which centralised architectures remain non-fragile). We prove non-equivalence at equal capacity: two architectures with identical total generation and storage can differ by more than one order of magnitude in single-fault survivability S(a) as a function of topology alone. We connect the framework to the Internal-Geometry Threshold (IGT) theory of self-referentially self-maintaining systems, derive the minimum external reference condition for stable power maintenance, confirm structural invariance across terrestrial microgrids, data centre power architectures, and maritime power systems, and specify a fully pre-registerable Collapse Counter-Scenario. The framework is immediately applicable to Artemis programme base planning and to commercial lunar facility design.
José Caetano de Mattos (Tue,) studied this question.
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