Distributed Renewable Energy: Anticipating Energy Development in Communities

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In the last few years, two significant trends have emerged in how we generate our electricity in the United States: a steady increase in the generation of power from renewable sources, and the integration of smaller, more dispersed facilities into a power-generation landscape that has up until now mostly consisted of massive, centrally located plants. Recent policy changes in cities and states across the country suggest that movement in this direction might be picking up steam.

This PAS Memo article defines distributed generation, discusses its benefits and obstacles to its development, and describes how regulatory and policy changes could set the stage for a substantial increase in distributed generation.

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