If you’re not in the electricity business today, you may be soon. Developments in generation technologies, regulatory policies, industry standards and digital communication are blurring the distinction between customers and utilities. Renewable-energy generation, primarily solar photovoltaic panels installed on privately owned rooftops throughout the country, is serving load under the roofs, with surplus power being sold into the grid. Utilities also are leasing rooftop real estate on warehouses and big-box stores to site their own PV panels.
Throw in building-integrated solar and wind, fuel cells, plug-in hybrids with net metering and a dog’s breakfast of other generation to round out the picture: Customers and utilities are selling power to each other, with generating plants spread like chocolate drops around the landscape, linked by the slowly extending tentacles of the smart grid. The whole country is becoming a virtual powerplant. Call it the Generation Nation.