Electricity transformation coming - to what?

By Margaret Ryan

AOL Energy

The U.S. energy system will be transformed beyond recognition in the next quarter century, but the only certainties are that no one knows what it will look like and it will cost a lot of money.

Electricity's future is about "disruptive technologies," speakers including Secretary of Energy Steven Chu told the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and the Department of Energy's National Electricity Forum in Washington D.C. earlier this month, and the power industry needs "partnerships" with state regulators to invest in the uncertain new era.

Needed spending could reach $2 trillion in the coming one to two decades, said Nicholas Akins, President and CEO of American Electric Power. Speakers agreed the resulting power system will probably be as different from today as an iPad is from a typewriter, but everyone wonders just who is going to pay for the transformation.

Some changes like better energy storage are expected. Chu said research has gotten storage cost down to about $350 a kilowatt-hour, and when it reaches $100, it will proliferate and allow much higher penetration of variable wind and solar resources.

Chu said some innovations are "right in front of us," citing the use of cheap overnight power to chill water for daytime cooling at the Texas Medical Center in Houston.

But futurists like Thomas Frey of The DaVinci Institute and John Petersen of The Arlington Institute joined policymakers like Chu Senior Advisor Lauren Azar who see distributed generation, like solar roofing shingles, and microgrids that maximize local control as fundamentally changing the way people think about electricity.

David Crane, President and CEO of NRG Energy, said he expects new technology to effectively turn consumers into power sellers, with electric vehicles in the garage, solar on the roof and apps on the smart phone, so his company is moving from being a traditional generator to a "customer service model."

Read an extended AOL Energy Q and A with David Crane on AOL Energy here.

LeRoy Nosbaum, President and CEO of Itron, said he sees "mass customization" of electricity supply, as consumers "want it their way."



Next page: Whatever the customer wants. Which is...?