Power Grid Politics: Distributed energy is good for America and good for Democrats

Almost as soon as the northeast power grid failed on Aug. 14, politicians on both sides of the aisle who weren't humming "Blame Canada!" started blaming each other for failing to steward the nation's electricity infrastructure. Led by Senator Hillary Clinton, Democrats blamed Republicans for an energy policy designed to pillage the Earth and enrich Bush administration gadflies, ignoring the proposed -- and not especially controversial -- power grid upgrades in this year's Republican-sponsored energy bill. Leading the Republican charge, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham blamed Senate Democrats for blocking passage of that very same bill, apparently wishing they had ignored unpalatable provisions that would, in fact, harm the environment and financially benefit Republican supporters.

But placing blame for what former Clinton administration energy secretary Bill Richardson called our "Third World power grid" misses the point. While power grid upgrades and proper regulation -- or re-regulation -- are necessary short-term fixes, the long-term answer to our growing appetite for electricity should be a shift away from the present system of large, centralized power plants to smaller, more local generation facilities serving individual buildings or communities. As policy, distributed energy has the potential to meet America’s electricity needs in ways that create jobs, protect the environment, and enhance national security. As political strategy, distributed energy is well suited to traditional Democratic labor and environment constituencies and gives Democrats a strong answer to Republican notions of national energy security.

Rather than a few thousand massive generation plants each serving millions of customers over a vast network of high-voltage transmission lines, a distributed energy system would employ tens of thousands of much smaller power sources -- traditional and alternative -- each serving anywhere from a handful (in an individual home or office, for example) to several thousand customers close to where the energy is actually used. As communities across America started meeting their own generation and transmission needs, demand for skilled blue-collar and light-blue-collar workers would increase. To the extent that individual homeowners and businesses would choose to generate their own electricity, secondary labor markets would evolve to sell, install, and service the equipment necessary for point-of-use power generation. Unions like the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers would see their ranks swell, and most of the new jobs created by local energy facilities would be inherently tied to the communities served by those facilities, insulating them from foreign outsourcing.

Both technologically and politically, distributed energy systems -- even those using fossil fuels -- are better for the environment. At present, on average, two-thirds of energy produced is lost during transmission over great distances. Reducing transmission distances would reduce excess burning of coal and oil and the need for potentially unhealthy high-voltage transmission lines. Some distributed energy technologies take advantage of proximity to simultaneously provide both heat and power, further reducing fossil fuel use. Proximity also would force people to face the environmental consequences of the power they use, raising grassroots awareness of environmental issues and creating strong incentives for ultra-efficient electrical devices and clean generation technologies.

If you were one of the 50 million people who lost power Aug. 14, chances are you thought at least for a moment that terrorism might have been involved. National security -- the political trump card in post-Sept.-11 America -- is better served by distributed energy than by the current power grid structure. As the blackout vividly demonstrated, relying on relatively few generation plants and a vast transmission network means that a few well-targeted strikes could knock out electricity to millions of people. Distributed energy would make it extremely difficult for terrorists to cut electricity to more than a few thousand people, and the kind of coordinated attack that would be required to knock out power to large swaths of the country would be next to impossible. While small, local generators might still be vulnerable to attack, so few people would be affected that it would be more of a nuisance than a security threat, discouraging attacks in the first place. Even in more likely events like severe weather, distributed energy would isolate the effects of power outages to far fewer homes and businesses, reducing the vulnerabilities inherent to our reliance on electricity.

While the important benefits of distributed energy do not negate the need for effective maintenance and regulation of the existing power grid, the more we can do to move in the direction of distributed energy, the better off we will be. The good news is that the transition to distributed generation is already underway. The Washington Post reported Friday that a growing number of businesses and other organizations are investing in their own sources of power, and that, according to the U.S. Combined Heat and Power Association, about 8 percent of our nation’s electricity already comes from distributed energy. The U.S. Department of Energy and numerous state-level organizations already have distributed energy programs, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and several state regulatory agencies are already beginning to address rules and standards to govern distributed energy technologies.

Hopefully, Democrats learned in November 2002 that it is not enough to oppose Republican policies without offering a compelling alternative. Democrats ought to embrace distributed energy as a transformational idea that will create American jobs, protect the environment, and ensure safe, reliable electricity while making our nation more secure.