The Grid: Electrical Infrastructure for a New Era

by Gretchen Bakke

When Xcel, the maligned former utility of Boulder, Colorado, offered this deal to its Minnesota customers, one friend of a friend on Facebook raved: “If you are a homeowner, there is no reason on earth not to do this … it will cost me $4/month and my energy from here on out will be 100 percent wind powered. What a great feeling! Plus, the energy that supplies Windsource will be purchased entirely from wind farms in Minnesota and will go above and beyond government mandates.” What matters here is the emotional force behind the idea for a certain kind of customer. No one connected to the grid, even if they pay the surcharge, is getting 100 percent of their electricity from “immaterial” fuels. Nor is their power, on a grid that spans half a continent, guaranteed to be more local. The same terms may be used to laud an environmentally friendly, locally produced electron as an organic, locally grown tomato, but the two entities are impossibly different. Both a customer who has checked the renewable fuels surcharge box and her neighbor get the same electricity. The principal difference is that the electric bill of the “Windsourse® for Residences” customer runs her four dollars more every month.