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Doug Bechtel
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More on what the electric industry will look like in the future.
In twenty years many of the existing electric cooperatives around the country will have disappeared because they were not able to economically compete in their markets. Others, like OPALCO will flourish. We will become a niche market - an area that is too expensive for a profit oriented business to want to serve and a membership that appreciates the local ownership and control that being a co-op offers and is willing to pay a slight premium for owning its own utility.
In fact, I see many more cooperatives serving the San Juan Islands in twenty years as many small businesses find that they can not survive by themselves in the increasingly complex world and need to federate to obtain services they can not afford by themselves.
Back to the electric system of the future. For small isolated utilities like OPALCO, the future will being many changes. There will not be a major breakthrough the makes utilities obsolete. If there was anything of that magnitude coming within twenty years, we would see it on the drawing board now. I am almost ashamed to admit it but there has not been much change in the electric industry methods of moving power from the generator to the end user in sixty years and I don't see any radical changes in the next twenty. The changes we will see will be evolutionary, not revolutionary.
There will be changes, many of our members in 2017 will have some type of generation on their property, whether it is wind, solar, small hydro or methane powered generation from compost, you will find it economical to hook it into our system to sell us your excess power.
By 2017 fuel cells will have become widely available at an almost reasonable cost. They will still be too expensive for everyone to own one but many will have them. Fuel cells will be about the size of your washing machine and will meet all of the electrical and heating needs of your home.
You will still be connected to our power lines to provide backup when your generator is out of service (or the wind doesn't blow or the sun is not bright enough). Our role will be like a bank, where you deposit energy during times of excess and draw it our when you run short. Individual neighborhoods may have their own distribution system separate from the OPALCO system.
Electricity will become a commodity and will be sold like gasoline with many suppliers and many types of products. Instead of leaded, unleaded and diesel, you will be able to chose electricity that changes price hourly so you will know when to run your generator, you will be able to buy electricity with a price fixed for as long as you want it. Like gasoline and propane, electricity will be paid for when you buy it, not when you use it.
If OPALCO is to make it until 2017 we need to keep a close eye on the next five years but not lose sight of the long term. In 2017 I fully expect to be sitting on my deck watching the setting sun and thinking about how hard the OPALCO manager is working and how I left him or her with a system ready for the future.
Doug Bechtel
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