The Battle Over the Microgrid

The "smart" grid powered by renewable energy sources is likely to be fundamentally different from the current electricity system in more ways than one. Some say it won't be as large-scale as it is now. That's not what utility companies want to hear.

1 minute read

July 11, 2009, 11:00 AM PDT

By Nate Berg


This piece looks at how de-concentrated energy production can work at the neighborhood scale, and why old school utility companies are fighting the move.

"The evidence is growing that privately owned, consumer-driven, small-scale, geographically distributed renewables could deliver a 100% green-energy future faster and cheaper than big power projects alone. Companies like GE and IBM are talking in terms of up to half of American homes generating their own electricity, renewably, within a decade. But distributed power -- call it the "microgrid" -- poses an existential threat to the business model the utilities have happily depended on for more than a century. No wonder so many of them are fighting the microgrid every step of the way."

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 in Fast Company

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

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