"As the damaging and costly impacts of climate change increase, the rapid development of sustainable energy has taken on great urgency. The electricity industry has responded with necessary but wrenching shifts toward renewables, even as it faces unprecedented challenges and disruption brought on by new technologies, new competitors, and policy changes. The result is a collision course between a grid that must provide abundant, secure, flexible, and affordable power, and an industry facing enormous demands for rapid, systemic change and power. The fashionable solution is to think small: smart buildings, small-scale renewables, and locally distributed green energy. But Peter Fox-Penner makes clear that these will not be enough to meet our increasing needs for electricity. He points instead to the indispensability of large power systems, battery storage, and scalable carbon-free power technologies, along with the grids and markets that will integrate them. The electric power industry and its regulators will have to provide all of these, even as they grapple with changing business models for local electric utilities, political instability, and technological change. Power after Carbon makes sense of all the moving parts, providing actionable recommendations for anyone involved with or relying on the electric power system"--.

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Epigraphs
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• PART I. The Need for Power and the Grids That Deliver It
  • 1. Les Jeux Sont Faits
    • Leapfrogging and Euthanasia
    • Beyond Decarbonization
  • 2. The Future Is Electric
    • Deconstructing Electricity Growth
    • Long-Term Efficiency Trends
    • Enter Carbon
    • The AI Wild Card
    • Electricity’s Third Act
  • 3. La Vida Local
    • Solar in the City, 2016
    • Solar in the City, 2050
    • Local Power versus the Grid, 2050
  • 4. Why We Grid
    • The Case for Big
    • Aggregation and Trading
    • Grids and Geographic Diversity
    • Not Quite Case Closed
  • 5. The Fragmented Future
    • How to Damage a Grid, Part 1: Summon Poseidon
    • Grid Vulnerabilities and the Climate
    • Grid Coping Skills
    • The Microgrid Revolution
    • How to Damage a Grid, Part 2: Hire a Hacker
    • New Architectural Paradigms
    • The Fragmented Future
• PART II. The Grid and Its Challenges
  • 6. Decarbonizing the Big Grid
    • The Old Design Paradigm
    • The New Paradigm
    • The Clean Power Toolkit
    • From Lab Bench to Toolkit
    • From Toolkit to Reality
  • 7. Not in My Backyard-State-Region
    • Planning the No-Carbon Future
    • Not in My Backyard
    • Searching for Supergrids
    • The Future of Grid Expansion
  • 8. The Big Grid Bucks Stop Here
    • A Power Plant’s Early Retirement Package
    • Power Markets and Plant Financing in a Carbon-Free Future
    • Pros, Cons, and Trade-Offs in Long-Term Markets
    • Fixing the Long-Term Markets
    • The Big Grid’s Future
• PART III. Running and Regulating Post-Carbon Utilities
  • 9. The Utility Business in Three Dimensions
    • The Business Model Rainbow
    • Public Power and Cooperatives
    • New Products and Horizons
    • Toward Customer Love
  • 10. The Really Smart Grid
    • The Prosumer ESCO Marketplace
    • Market Optimum and Public Interest
    • Grid Pricing and “Optimizing” the System
    • Retail Choice’s Next Act
    • Machine over Market
  • 11. Governing a Really Smart Grid
    • Setting Regulation’s Goals
    • Pricing Grid Services
    • The Problem of Fixed Costs
    • Planning and Building the Distribution System
    • Of Elegance and Complexity
  • 12. The Business and Regulation of Energy Service Utilities
    • The Case for ESUs
    • Changing Utilities’ Cultural Stripes
    • Regulating an ESU
    • Cross-Subsidies and the Space for Political Bargains
  • 13. Forces and Fault Lines beyond the Industry
    • Big Tech and Monopoly Power
    • Privacy and the Smart Grid
    • Energy Democracy
    • Political Fault Lines
  • 14. Money Talks
    • Wall Street and New Business Models
  • 15. Power without Carbon
• Appendix A: Summary of Policy Recommendations
• Appendix B: The Challenges to Energy Spot Markets with Increased Wind and Solar Generation
• Appendix C: Source Notes for Figure 2-2
• Appendix D: Supplement to Table 6-1
• Notes
• References
• Acknowledgments
• Index