Communities Shunning Utilities, Forming Microgrids

My current book project explores the notion that the forces of free market economics alone are in the process of forcing a rapid migration away from fossil fuels in the direction of renewables, energy efficiency, storage, smart grid, and electric transportation. I argue this from a great number of different perspectives, as suggested in the title “Bullish on Renewable Energy – Eleven Reasons Why Clean Energy Investors Can’t Lose.”

One of the chapters deals with the upheaval in the world of the power utilities, i.e., how re-regulation, RPSs, distributed generation and negative growth are conspiring to make investors in these businesses very nervous. Illustrative of all this mess is the fact that whole communities are forming their own microgrids and telling their utilities to take a flying leap (see pic above). Here’s an article about this exact phenomenon, taking place in a small burg in Germany.