Renewable energy vs. the electric grid - Solar, Wind and Land: Conflicts in Renewable Energy Development - page 167

above are needed to facilitate the efficient build-out of transmission capacity
in remote areas that will be necessary to support full development of the
world's wind and solar development. Within urban areas, thoughtful
revisions to electricity rate setting policies will also grow ever more critical
to efficiently governing conflicts between the rooftop solar energy industry
and electric utilities.
Renewable energy technologies are ever improving, so it is not incon-
ceivable that a day will eventually arrive when the electric grid as we know
it is no longer needed at all. Like the pony express of nineteenth-century
America or the antiquated telegraph infrastructure that succeeded it,
electricity grids seem destined to eventually be supplanted by something
better. If innovations someday eliminate the need to interconnect energy
users via vast, complex webs of lines and substations, many of the struggles
described in this chapter will fall by the wayside, greatly simplifying
sustainable energy development. Until that vision is achieved, however,
engineers, policymakers and industry players each have much to contribute
in the global effort to address grid-related challenges so that the global
transition toward more sustainable energy sources can continue unabated
throughout this century and beyond.
Notes
1 David B. Spence, Regulation, Climate Change, and the Electric Grid , 3 San
Diego J. Climate & Energy L. 267, 271 (2012).
2 Id.
3 Other researchers have similarly emphasized challenges raised by the immobile
nature of wind resources. See, e.g ., Sandeep Vaheesan, Preempting Parochialism
and Protectionism in Power , 49 Harv. J. on Legis. 87, 97 (2012) (noting
that, “[u]nlike coal, natural gas, and other fossil fuels, which can be moved
by pipeline, rail or ship, renewable energy resources are location-specific and
cannot be transported to points closer to load centers and used to generate power
there”).
4 See American Wind Energy Association, Top 20 States with Wind Energy
Potential (2008), available online at www.casperlogisticshub.com/downloads/
Top_20_States.pdf (last visited Sept. 3, 2013).
5 U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012 at 19 (2012),
available at www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0014.pdf (last
visited Sept. 5, 2013).
6 See, e.g. , Potomac Economics, 2012 State of the Market Report for the Midwest
ISO at 49 (2013) (noting that “continued increases in wind output in 2012
resulted in more congestion on constraints carrying power out of the West”).
7 Anne Kallies, The Impact of Electricity Market Design on Access to the Grid
and Transmission Planning for Renewable Energy in Australia: Can Overseas
Examples Provide Guidance?, 2 Renewable Energy L. & Pol'y Rev. 147, 158
(2011).
8 See Dermot Duncan & Benjamin K. Sovacool, The Barriers to the Successful
Development of Commercial Grid Connected Renewable Electricity Projects in
Australia, Southeast Asia, the United Kingdom and the United States of America ,
2 Renewable Energy L. & Pol'y Rev. 283, 295 (2011).