U.S. Power Grid numbers & perspectives
The U.S. electrical grid, once one of the world’s great marvels, is crumbling after decades of underinvestment. Valued at $876 billion by the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group, the grid is an amalgam of almost 7,000 power plants that send electricity over 450,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 2.5 million miles of feeder lines. All this is managed by 3,300 utilities serving 150 million customers. The grid is arguably the biggest machine on earth. It’s also something of a relic, largely built after World War II from designs that date to Thomas Edison. Half of U.S. homes still have mechanical meters that require workers to show up and read them. Most utilities can’t analyze their customers’ energy use beyond the monthly bill.
There are 3,300 utilities that make up the U.S. electrical grid, the largest machine in the world. These power companies sell $400 billion worth of electricity a year. Regulators set rates; utilities get guaranteed returns; investors get sure-thing dividends. It’s a model that hasn’t changed much since Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. And it’s doomed to obsolescence.
Cheers
Link:
A Smarter Power Grid for U.S. Utilities
By Mark Chediak, Jim Polson, and Ken Wells July 10, 2014
http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-07-10/u-dot-s-dot-utilities-start-to-invest-in-smarter-power-grid
