Reply #49: Now I understand your point. Thanks for amplifying.

[kristopher]

The recent move to un-bundling the utilities has made the costs of the various services related to transmission and distribution very transparent in most areas. For example, my ISO (PJM) charges for ancillary services and transmission less than 7/10ths of a cent per kilowatt hour. The local company that distributes the electricity to my home charges substantially more at 2.6 cents per kWh. On top of that, the local company charges a flat $7.95/month for administrative costs. In contrast, the actual electricity and fuel adjustment charges make up over 70% of the total price I pay.

Your statement that the transmission and distribution charges will still be in effect are obviously true since we will continue to rely on a grid to make renewables work. However, just as clearly, the costs you were projecting in your first posts are rather exaggerated. For sake of argument let's say a typical bill is $100 and 30% of that is T&D for an average cost to each consumer of $30/mo. Your argument as I understand it is that the T&D percentage would rise as the amount of centrally generated electricity consumption declines. I agree with that. However, since the charge is actually a per customer charge, and since there is little reason to believe the total number of centrally served customers would decline significantly, there is consequently no reason to expect the amount spent on these T&D services to rise in actual dollars per month per customer.

The reason I don't expect declining participation in the grid is that Smart Grid technology will make it beneficial for those who can afford to install larger distributed generating capacity to remain on the grid in order to maximize the value of the generating resource they've invested in. I see no reason urban dwellers will pay significantly more for anything.

The real losers will be the people who own fossil fuel natural resources and fossil fuel generating plants.