Say there is some kind of crisis or catastrophe that results in a power outage. Or even just a local power cut due to some issues with the power supply line. Say you have a standard modern home (not an eHUB) equipped with IoT technology. You wake up in the morning, tell your smart speaker to turn on the light, but nothing happens.
So what's the big deal?

You get up, grope around in the dark until you find the light switch... nothing. So you grab your phone and try to find out what happened. If the cellular network is still intact, this might be as easy as seeing a warning displayed from an emergency app or searching for an answer on the internet. If it is not, you might end up leaving your house to ask the neighbors whether anyone knows what is going on - hoping that it is not too early and you are not just now ruining their sleep. Hoping further that it is nothing serious. It shouldn't be, right? Else you'd be notified somehow...

A couple of streets down the road, Jenny, the current occupant of the eHUB, wakes up, tells her smart speaker to turn on the light and maybe wonders a bit - in her state of morning fatigue - why the lights are somewhat dimmed.
"There has been a power outage due to a heavy storm damaging the power supply in the area. We are currently operating on power-saving mode. Estimates say that the power outage will last for a couple of hours."

Jenny asks for more details. Luckily, nobody was severly injured during the storm and repairs are underway. Jenny nods and goes on with her day as usual. Power-saving mode at this time of day means that she can share power with her neighbors while putting up with some minor inconveniences such as dimmed lighting or washing her clothes only during the day or unloading the package delivery drones herself. But it also means her neighbors get to dress without requiring a flashlight and can cook their own coffee.

Jenny sets out to go to university and peeks at the display on the wall that faces the space in front of the house. It repeats her speaker's warning, shows that the power supply to the neighbors is working and that the drones have flown out to fill gaps in the neighborhood network to provide a means of communication and to allow for continued internet access.

Jenny checks her phone. It shows a signal loss to the cellular network. Apparently the power outage is more severe than she realized. But she did get a notification only ten minutes ago. Communication may be slower than usual, but it works.

A drone moves in to charge, gliding almost soundlessly until right above the roof, then landing with a soft whirring noise of the rotors. Jenny smiles. Everything is as fine as it gets. She takes her bike and drives down the road.

Not far along Mark hails her. "Hey! I was just on the way to your home. What happened?"
Jenny tells him what she knows. "But the drones are out."
"I know." Mark smiles sheepishly. "But I forgot to charge my phone yesterday."

Mark waves as Jenny drives off. He lives two streets away and there is no eHUB in his neighborhood, yet. Though, starting with her home and some places at university, more and more eHUBs are build. At some time in the not so far future every home will be provided with electricity. And after that...

No time to ponder over it now, she reminds herself. The storm left its marks on the city, too. There are branches, shingles and other obstacles on the road. People are working to clean them. Jenny halts at a crossroad where some bikers and a street cleaning car drive by.

"How am I supposed to get the car out of the garage?", asks an elderly man.
She hears people nearby talking and inquiring what happened and how long the outage will last.

Some of them will gather around her home soon. It always becomes a hub in times like these, showing messages of what is going on and supplying spare power to people who need it to, for example, charge their phones.

Jenny quite likes these gatherings. She has had a couple of interesting conversations with people she probably wouldn't have met otherwise. But right now it is just a normal day for her and she needs to get to university.

Her eHUB will provide what it can to the people without her help.

As a part of active research some of this is still in the future. Drones are not unloaded automatically yet, but they can recharge themselves. The power distribution and where how much energy is needed is an active research field. But providing normality as much as possible by opting to different, e.g. low-power, technology in the background is part of preparing for a digital future. Imagine more houses built self-sufficiently, providing their neighbors with what they require in times of need and shortages.