Power Utilities of Tomorrow: It’s Complicated

As the power utilities fight for their lives, given the defection of customers due to rooftop solar, they look to electric vehicles to replace all that load.  Besides electricity generation itself, transportation is the biggest energy consumer in the U.S., and well over 90% of it currently derives from petroleum, making this a lush target. 

Yet, keeping the utilities and their customers happy and healthy isn’t easy, because of the numerous constraints we face:

• Those who can’t afford solar (or who rent their homes) can’t be overcharged for power.

• Our society needs more solar and other low-carbon energy sources in its quest to stem climate change.

• As long as utilities remain in the private sector, they need to operate profitably.

• The oil companies’ enormous political clout makes it hard to pass regulations that reduce the demand for their products (CAFE standards, carbon taxes, EV incentive programs, etc.)

• The military industrial complex relies on war for its very existence, and access to oil, while it’s not the only casus belli, it certainly is the perennial favorite.

• Out of fairness, providers of value-added service like wave-form and voltage regulation, energy storage, etc., should be fairly compensated.

Can all these masters be served at the same time?  That’s precisely what we’re in the process of finding out.