A Quick Summary Detailing The US Electric Power Grid From Community Energy Generators To Central Plants And Now Back Again.

In the early days of electric generation power plants had been a hometown affair. In 1883 one company, Edison Electric maintained 334 generators operating in manufacturing factories and other industrial operations. Local communities also began to put in electrical power and it was all provided on a community scale. For instance one of many early plants was in lower Manhattan serving 59 customers.

By 1900 sixty percent of electrical power was produced on site, although that began to change rapidly as the economies of scale began to favor big centralized electrical power producing plants. Within a 12 year span 70,000 small generators ended up being scrapped for centralized generation and by 1930 merely 20% of electricity was generated on site.

At this point the question was who would own and control the brand new central system of electrical generation and distribution. The regulators decided that utilities would be assured a profit big enough to appeal to investors and utilities had an obligation to serve electricity to all customers with high stability.

By 1970 the US government urged power companies to embrace nuclear power plants, each of which could possibly serve up to 4 million users. That contributed to power companies investing in mega nuclear plants and before anyone realized it, surplus power was reaching forty percent. Power companies began marketing with such slogans as, "leave a porch light on". The electricity glut led to the financial disaster of several utility companies. By 1990 commercial growth had soaked up excess capacity and in 1978 Congress abolished the original monopoly and created the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) which in turn required utility companies to buy power from independent power producers or IPPs.

In 1992 Congress deregulated the electrical market and allowed IPPs access to the nation's high voltage transmission lines making them common carriers. That caused quite a few complications tracking whose electricity went where. Additionally electricity would flow in loops looking for a buyer. To compound the situation FERC okayed a brand new entity in 1986 called an electricity marketer which changed how electricity was purchased and sold. Furthermore IPPs ended up generating more and more electrical power and in 1994 accounted for 75% of all new capacity. This particular group now had plenty of influence and started demanding more transmission lines to market their energy.

By 2008 a new group had come forth to lobby for additional higher voltage transmission lines. This circle represented the environmentally friendly energy groups as well as their backers.

Because of the nature of electrical production most high voltage transmission lines are situated in coal country. Coal fired plant's job and economic support result in less enthusiastic support for renewables in those districts. With coal country resistance and absence of a carbon tax, alternative power has had a difficult time taking hold until now.

The state of California conducted a solar farming in California resource assessment and discovered that the solar farm potential, excluding property because of environmental and practical issues, is over 16,000,000 MW. Put another way, California requires less than 1% (0.32%) of its land dedicated to solar farm generators to attain self-sufficiency from solar farm sites.

One organization, Commercial Solar Design, provides consulting and turn key expertise across the country for property owners who are interested in the possibilities of solar farming on their vacant or underused property. Search for chapter 2 of this post for more details on how property owners can move forward with plans for a solar farm.

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