"...the coming tussle between solar and conventional energy is not going to be a fair fight.”
- Sanford C. Bernstein
There are 3,200 utilities that make up the U.S. electrical
grid, the largest machine in the world. These power companies sell $400
billion worth of electricity a year, mostly derived from burning fossil
fuels in centralized stations and distributed over 2.7 million miles of
power lines. Regulators set rates; utilities get guaranteed returns;
investors get sure-thing dividends. It’s a model that hasn’t changed
much since Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. And it’s doomed to
obsolescence.
That’s the opinion of David Crane, chief executive
officer of NRG Energy, a wholesale power company based in Princeton,
N.J. What’s afoot is a confluence of green energy and computer
technology, deregulation, cheap natural gas, and political pressure
that, as Crane starkly frames it, poses “a mortal threat to the existing
utility system.” He says that in about the time it has taken cell
phones to supplant land lines in most U.S. homes, the grid will become
increasingly irrelevant as customers move toward decentralized homegrown
green energy. Rooftop solar, in particular, is turning tens of
thousands of businesses and households into power producers. Such
distributed generation, to use the industry’s term for power produced
outside the grid, is certain to grow.
Read more:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-22/homegrown-green-energy-is-making-power-utilities-irrelevant
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