Jennah

“White Star liner. The Clarks were booked for passage from New York to Ireland to Cherbourg. This crossing would be a treat, the second voyage of the largest ship afloat: the RMS Titanic.”
― Bill Dedman, Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune

“This is the way the power industry began in the days of Muncie, Indiana. Each town had one power plant, and there were no power lines between cities or towns. Moreover, technological developments are forcing a new look at this sort of design, nowadays referred to as microgrids. However, with current technologies and costs, microgrids are not yet cheaper than power from the large-scale grid. In other words, if you want an electric power supply that is extremely reliable—that is, very rarely has blackouts—at the lowest possible price, you need a fleet of large generators and a grid interconnecting them.”
― Peter Fox-Penner, Smart Power Anniversary Edition: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities

“First, they could create a system of “open access” in which any power generator could use anyone else’s transmission system on a first-come, first-served basis to deliver power from a generator to a state-regulated distribution system. Second, the FERC started allowing some generators to make wholesale sales—sales only to other utilities, not actual end users—at deregulated rates. Once federal regulators enacted these key preconditions, advocates of deregulation could approach individual states. State legislatures could then vote to allow competition among deregulated retailers of power, or “retail choice,” as it became known. About half the states did just this, almost all in regions where retail rates were well above the national average.”
― Peter Fox-Penner, Smart Power Anniversary Edition: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities

“Energy efficiency is universally viewed as the best and cheapest means of reducing carbon emissions. But the power industry was designed to make and sell as much power as possible as cheaply as possible. Repurposing the industry to both sell and save electricity raises extremely difficult financial, regulatory, and managerial questions.”
― Peter Fox-Penner, Smart Power Anniversary Edition: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities