There are two components to power cells; the charge rate/capacity could be damaged as well as the power grid. There also seems to be two components to a ship's middle section, the top and bottom.

For disabling only weapons maybe, but I don't see being hit on the nose hurting my power cell. If those weapons were similar to the Ion Cannon in Star Wars that effectively knocks out, or down, all electrical systems for x time, then that could be a way to do it. Component... I think less so.

It's more of a "lucky shot" factor. If a shot accidentally hits somewhere on the engines, and the ship doesn't have shielding, the engines will be damaged. If it's powerful enough, it should definitely take down maneuverability and speed. Seriously, how well are you going to be able to move with a hole in your engine?

A disabling blaster...

A charged powercell could act as a defense against such a weapon. Taking hits will knock down the charge in the cell, if the cell is empty, or doesn't have enough charge to resist a hit then the gun starts knocking down operational power grid. Power grid could restored by allowing the cell to generate power. Say dumping 250 energy from the cell will restore 1 grid back to operation.

Would also grant some advantages to not fully loading a ship's grid, since losing partial grid capacity won't affect weapons/mobility.

If the Devs want to invest any time on the current ship models, it'd be cool if damaging certain sections caused the pictures to change to more, exploded looking pieces.

Perhaps ships could be armoured so that additional hits on a "red" section would deal more damage. A slight nerf on ganking? Pilots with the skill to present the unhit portions of their ship at the enemy deserve realistic advantage it implies.