Energy eighteen wheelers: the technological revolution within utility restructuring.

The electric utility industry, is being de-regulated and restructured. The utilities want to preserve their traditional markets and customers and to avoid stranding their capital investments. Special customer interest groups want to open these traditional markets to new "merchant" providers of electricity. And consumers want an energy price reduction. Legislation is being introduced both nationally and at the state levels to create new markets and rules to play them by. In all the excitement assumptions are being made that limit the number of restructuring outcomes. My fear is that the limiting assumptions are based upon traditional concepts of generation systems. No one appears to be looking at outcomes that are not obvious or that are not based upon past utility industry structure. In other words no one is looking for the equivalent of "Energy Eighteen Wheelers". Some of the more sophisticated and perhaps less developed include multi-fueled micro turbine generators, solar dish Stirling engines, micro hydro generators, small wind turbines, and photovoltaics. Though acquainted with them all generally, I am most familiar with photovoltaics. As I mentioned earlier, I have spent the past few years pursuing their commercial development and deployment.