Here’s an excellent article on the potential future of the electrical grid from the Rocky Mountain Institute. Thanks to Dave Beaulieu from Peak Solar.
Keeping the Lights On While Transforming Electric Utilities
By Lena Hansen and Amory B. Lovins
Electric utilities operate now much as they did a century ago—but the environment in which they operate is changing dramatically. Now more than ever before, utilities whose regulators reward them in the traditional way for selling more electricity risk losing revenue as customers use their electricity more efficiently. Climate change and energy security concerns, coupled with advances in disruptive technologies, may make conventional power-generating assets uncompetitive to build or even to run. Potential competitors armed with new technologies, new business models, and greater cultural agility are emerging in many sectors.
A New Electricity Paradigm
Responding to these disruptive forces requires a shift to a fundamentally new paradigm of electricity generation and use—business-as-usual incrementalism is simply insufficient. The new paradigm will be based on a highly integrated network of advanced technologies including energy efficiency, demand response (which affects the timing rather than the efficiency of usage), renewables such as solar and wind, energy storage, and distributed generation.
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