April 28, 2008 | 24 Comments A debate between advocates of
distributed and centralized renewable energy systems is just
beginning. It is overdue. Consideration of scale in renewable
energy systems has been delayed in part because we first had to
bring solar energy in all its forms to market, and in part
because the distributed nature of renewable energy resources
seemed inexorably to lead to their being harnessed in
distributed fashion. Only recently have we begun to realize that
a renewable energy future does not inevitably mean a
decentralized energy future. Indeed, right now the fastest
growing part of the renewable energy industry may be the large
solar central power systems being built in remote locations in
the southwest to serve customers in Los Angeles, and the huge
wind farms being built in the Midwest to serve customers in
Chicago. The preferred scale of solar energy did arise briefly
30 years ago when NASA vigorously lobbied for Congress to fund a
series of solar power satellites. NASA maintained t