![](\"http:\/\/cdn.physorg.com\/newman\/gfx\/news\/2013\/growthofdist.jpg\")
<\/a>\r\nSteven Schultz wrote for Physorg 6 May 2013,\r\n\r\nGrowth of ‘distributed’ electricity generation could transform\r\nutility systems<\/a>,\r\n<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n(Phys.org) —The U.S. electric utility industry faces a\r\ncritical juncture as new technology and declining prices allow a\r\nmore “distributed” system of small-scale generators, renewable\r\nenergy installations and energy-efficiency strategies, according to\r\na group of high-level energy industry executives and regulators who\r\nmet at Princeton University recently.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n“We have a monumental challenge,” said Jon Wellinghoff, chairman of\r\nthe Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who participated in the\r\nall-day meeting Friday, April 26. Citing commentary by an analyst\r\nwho warned of a potential “train wreck” in the industry, Wellinghoff\r\noutlined converging tends in which technological advances are\r\nallowing consumers and companies to take matters of reliability,\r\nsecurity and efficiency into their own hands, while utility\r\ncompanies are under pressure to maintain and upgrade a national\r\nelectricity system that is broadly accessible.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n“Everybody saw the Super Bowl,” Wellinghoff said, referring to the\r\nhalf-hour blackout that disrupted the 2013 football championship.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
He didn’t mention that after blacking out the Super Bowl\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\n\r\n\r\nEntergy \r\ncouldn’t keep Yankee Pilgrim nuclear station running in a snowstorm<\/a>.\r\nWellinghof continued:\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\n“Everybody saw the outages in lower Manhattan [after Hurricane\r\nSandy] very graphically.”\r\nPeople will want to have more control.\r\nPeople will want the ability to flip the switch and know that when\r\nthey flip the switch they are in control.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\nNoting that such independent systems—known in the industry as\r\ndistributed energy—create significant potential benefits to\r\nsociety, Wellinghoff called on the 31 assembled executives,\r\nregulators and academic researchers to look for agreement about how\r\nto set prices that encourage innovation, while continuing to fund\r\nthe infrastructure needed for people and businesses that rely on\r\ncentralized, public systems.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nThe electric utilities know \r\ndistributed solar is going to disrupt their cozy baseload business model<\/a>,\r\nso they might as well get on with\r\n\r\nwhat the vast majority of the American people want<\/a>\r\na\r\n\r\nresilient grid through rooftop solar<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nThe physorg article and\r\n\r\nanother from Princeton<\/a> are rather vague about which corporate\r\nexecutives were there:\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\nParticipants included two senior administrators at the U.S.\r\nDepartment of Energy; the heads of the public utility boards of\r\nConnecticut, New Jersey and New York; the chief executives of two\r\nmajor public utilities, the CEO of a regional transmission\r\norganization; the CEO of a competitive solar energy company; the\r\nfounder of an energy efficiency company, as well as the presidents\r\nof solar industry advocacy groups, consumer and environmental\r\nadvocacy groups and industry consulting groups.\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\nApparently there was nobody from Georgia Power or Southern Company.\r\nToo bad; maybe they could have learned something\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\n“It was interesting to see how complicated the business of selling\r\nelectricity is and how many factors go into deciding whether\r\nbusiness models are viable,” said Mark Walker, a first-year Ph.D.\r\nstudent in Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and\r\nInternational Affairs. He added that it also was striking “how\r\nemerging technologies can drastically change the way we might see\r\nthe grid operate in the future.”\r\n<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\nThe grid already does operate differently\r\n\r\nin some states<\/a>,\r\nbut not any where Southern Company operates.\r\nWe know what Southern Company and Georgia Power are doing:\r\n\r\ndragging Georgia behind in solar power<\/a>\r\nwhile\r\n\r\npromoting boondoggles like Kemper “clean” coal\r\nand the 19-months-late and a-billion-over-budget Vogtle new nukes<\/a>.\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\n\r\nEventually even SO and Georgia Power’s jaws will drop at\r\n\r\n
<\/a>\r\n\r\nhow fast solar power is taking over<\/a>,\r\nas everybody else runs right past Georgia, scoring touchdown after touchdown\r\nin the Super Bowl of solar power.\r\nDo we want to wait for that?\r\n<\/p>\r\n
\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s literally game-changing time with solar power at the electric utilities, while Georgia Power and Southern Company are sticking with big baseload nuclear, “clean coal”, and natural gas. They cannot win if they don’t even try. Steven Schultz wrote for Physorg 6 May 2013, Growth of ‘distributed’ electricity generation could transform utility systems, (Phys.org) —The […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[216,14,8,18,6124,104,23,24,1923],"tags":[8753,8704,8701,8708,8702,12,7,562,8737,8713,8714,108,8847,6,8716],"class_list":["post-3338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal","category-economy","category-georgia","category-georgia-power","category-natural-gas-2","category-nuclear","category-renewable-energy","category-solar","category-sports","tag-coal","tag-economy","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-power","tag-lake","tag-lowndes-area-knowledge-exchange","tag-lowndes-county","tag-natural-gas","tag-nuclear","tag-renewable-energy","tag-solar","tag-southern-company","tag-sports","tag-valdosta","tag-wind"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-RQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3338"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3344,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3338\/revisions\/3344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}