Why the Microgrid Could Be the Answer to Our Energy Crisis | Page 6 | Fast Company

Why the Microgrid Could Be the Answer to Our Energy Crisis | Page 6 | Fast Company: "there may be a huge new niche opening up in the market: 'What's been missing is that, unlike Verizon in the cellular business, there's no big heavy-balance-sheet company doing a marketing push out there -- on TV, with a toll-free number: Take your home and cut your energy use in half! Brought to you by Home Depot.'

It will take a major act of political courage to create a microgrid market big enough to draw in a Wal-Mart or a Home Depot, or even to grow a startup like Jonah DeCola's Clean and Smart or the dozens of others ramping up across the country. Even in Massachusetts, individual installations are limited to 2 megawatts (10 megawatts for cities or towns), and to just 1% of peak capacity in each local area, which Bowles admits was a political compromise. But with the right policies in place, there's a lot of money to be made in this market -- perhaps even by an innovative utility that has reinvented itself as a comprehensive renewables-and-efficiency services company."