Offers a clear and accessible vision of how we can transform the electric power industry to adapt to twenty-first century challenges. This book considers how utilities interact with customers and how the Smart Grid could revolutionise their relationship.

Few industries in the U.S. are as stuck in the past as our utilities are. In the face of climate change and the need for energy security, a system that took more than a century to evolve must now be extensively retooled in the span of a few decades, although many of the technologies and institutions needed are still being designed or tested. It is like rebuilding our entire airplane fleet, along with our runways and air traffic control system, while the planes are all up in the air filled with passengers.

In this accessible and insightful book, Peter Fox-Penner considers how utilities interact with customers and how the Smart Grid could revolutionize their relationship. He considers the costs of, and tradeoffs between, large-scale power sources such as coal plants and small-scale power sources close to customers. Finally, he looks at how utilities can respond to all of these challenges and remain viable, while financing hundreds of billions of dollars of investment without much of an increase in sales.

This Anniversary Edition includes up-to-date assessments of the industry by such leading energy experts as Daniel Estes and Jim Rogers, as well as a new afterword from the author.