The electric utility industry has operated under the paradigm that big generators are sufficiently more efficient than small generators to justify the considerable expense of the T&D network required to get their energy to widely distributed loads. This has been the case since Tesla and Westinghouse invented the modern electric utility industry (to a lesser extent Edison, who actually invented DC microgrids). But what if this was not true, at least in some cases?
The answer to the above question appears to be: this assumption is no longer true in limited cases, and this will start an evolution of the grid’s structure.
The title evolution will not be rapid, nor will it initially be universally applicable, but it will start in the next year or two, and it will progress relentlessly for the next few decades. For areas with widely dispersed small communities that are susceptible to wildfires and thus public safety power shutoffs (and other widespread outages), the California Utility organizations appear to have made the determination that these would be better served by microgrids rather than the traditional grid. This post is about this evolution and its implications.