Distributed Generation Revisited: Part III, Dynamism Through Arbitrage and Bricolage

I've left this final discussion of distributed generation until now simply because I was struggling for a way to describe the dynamic method of electric utility pricing that wouldn't repeat my description from years ago. A dynamic system is one with a near infinite range of price variation, an irreducible continuum of cost, not just the three Peak, Shoulder and Off-Peak rates of Part II. It's a system that allows for more than just simple energy arbitrage, though that would be a key dynamic element of the system.

It turns out anyone who understands dynamic markets can envision this electricity market which prices needed power on the fly electronically. That's not the real element to discuss, I've decided. The truly important and revolutionary promise of distributed generation is not found in its pieces and parts but in the transformative promise the dynamic interaction of small parts can make: By spreading the responsibility for providing power to as many participants as possible, the entire grid can function with increasingly smaller elements and, by extension, with increasingly simpler organizations overseeing those elements.

In essence, a distributed system is a democratized system. ( And a democratized system might be our last best hope. )

Link to Berman article via nebris.