Wisconsin builds a distributed resources collaborative: Looking for local solutions that work
I`d like to tell you how I got involved in the DR Collaborative and why I`m here. John Nesbitt asked me to come, to be the public advocate, the bumblebee on the EPRI body politic. What follows is my own thought, not that of John or my fellow collaborators, who may or may not agree with me. How did I come to know John Nesbitt? In August 1991, I found that some Wisconsin utilities intended to run a 138 kV transmission line across my property, along the driveway where my kids ride their bikes, along the high ground where we walk to escape the mosquitoes in the summer, where we ski cross-country and admire the snowy view in the winter. As a result, I became intensely interested in the electric power business. One thing led to another. I got on the Board of Wisconsin Demand-Side Demonstrations (WDSD), representing a group called the Citizens` Utility Board (CUB). I met Mr. Nesbitt. We shared an interest in distributed resources (DR). Along with some others, we conspired to initiate the Targeted Area Planning (TAP) collaborative. TAP is what we call DR in Wisconsin. I began to talk in acronyms. The simple truth is, I detest transmission lines. And, since transmission lines are invariably hooked up to central generation, I have no love for big power plants either. That whole system approach looks excessive and outdated to me, a vestige of the nineteenth century, Jules Verne without the romance. My opinion is, who needs it? I am aware that my opinion is not shared by everyone. I grant you that transmission lines might be a mite more acceptable if the thousands of landowners like me who presently subsidize their existence were receiving compensation, say an annual commodity transfer fee, that reflected some small portion of the value of transmission lines in the present system. That is certainly not the case, and if it were, the present system, when and if deregulated, would price itself out of existence all the more quickly.
- Research Organization:
- Electric Power Research Inst. (EPRI), Palo Alto, CA (United States); Barakat and Chamberlin, Inc., Oakland, CA (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 226971
- Report Number(s):
- EPRI-TR-105791; CONF-9508115-; TRN: 96:001839-0023
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 1. annual distributed resources conference: planning for a competitive market, Kansas City, MO (United States), 29-31 Aug 1995; Other Information: PBD: Dec 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of Distributed resources 1995: Planning for a competitive market. EPRI`s first annual distributed resources conference proceedings; PB: 400 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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