An Electric Revolution, Chapter Five: Giving Consumers True Power
One of the greatest benefits to individuals and communities of an intelligent distribution grid revolution is the opportunity for job creation and increased income. Direct jobs would come from installation and service of intelligent and green grid systems. Communities with intelligent and reliable grids would attract modern digital-based industries, which also generate high-value employment and tax revenue. Moreover, on the national scale this is essential to successfully competing in today’s global economy.
The right to sell all of a consumer’s distributed power production is an exceptionally important development, enabled by what’s known as retail net metering and a “feed-in tariff.” While a growing number of utilities allow customers to feed electricity back into the grid, financial credit typically stops when production equals consumption. When the meter is “zeroed out,” the extra power goes to the utility for free. This policy impedes the adoption of alternative generation sources. In much of Europe, feed-in tariffs are standard for homes and businesses that produce their own and surplus electricity and have helped make Germany a world leader in solar energy.
Advocates for the disadvantaged express concerns that an Electric Revolution would leave the poor behind, that clean energy would burden budgets already stretched perilously thin. While the less affluent in the nation probably can’t invest in solar panels and sell excess power now, they would benefit from intelligent, consumer-empowering meters and home automation, supplied at no cost by entrepreneurial microgrid operators. Lower energy prices and new job opportunities would be a disproportionate advantage to the less fortunate — the hallmark of insightful social policy.
