The Future is Distributed

This is the dawn of the distributed energy era. There are already millions of devices in homes and businesses that can respond to signals — and turn on and off — in times of abundance or scarcity. 

Soon, many gigawatts of distributed energy will be scattered in the batteries of millions of electric cars, trucks, and buses, and will be generated from rooftop solar panels and stored in powerwall battery units. 

But distributed energy also means demand management. Energy will go further as high efficiency heat pumps replace aging, inefficient electric heaters and blackout-inducing resistance heat — these and other devices also will respond to signals to power down when electricity is expensive and they aren’t needed, then come back online when it’s cheaper and more plentiful…