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Energy consumers want lower energy costs. By reducing energy consumption, energy efficiency and other load-reduction measures can significantly cut energy bills for all energy users.
Energy consumers also want to choose among power supply options. This has been one of the key drivers of restructuring in the electricity industry. By giving consumers choice—including, ultimately, the choice to disconnect from the grid entirely—distributed energy (DE) systems may be the most effective way to ensure that true competition is introduced to the restructured electricity industry.
Why would consumers choose distributed power? There are many potential benefits, but the need for reliable, high-quality power is one of the prime motivators.
Many businesses—especially the growing number dependent on microprocessors—need high-quality, reliable electricity to keep manufacturing processes going or provide services such as financial transactions. Yet a typical computer system experiences around 300 power disturbances outside the manufacturer's voltage tolerance limits annually. Even momentary power disturbances can cost some businesses millions of dollars. According to the Electric Power Research Institute, power fluctuations and outages cost U.S. businesses about $50 billion a year. Utility systems were designed and built before this dependence on high-quality power became common. DE represents a way to address this need.
And there may be no way to quantify the damage to public health, science, and society because of power failures at research facilities, hospitals, and other locations that provide essential services. As an example, during the July 1999 blackouts on the East Coast, crucial laboratory experiments in cancer and AIDS research were disrupted at Columbia University.
Some energy consumers have already responded by installing their own DE systems. The First National Bank of Omaha, for example, uses fuel cells to run its credit-card processing center, thereby saving about $6 million per hour of power outage.
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