An interesting Fast Company article starts with a description of a typical renewable energy project in California, that uses a centralized mindset (the Green Path North).

It writes that: “There’s nothing especially efficient or high tech about heavy-duty aluminum-steel cables; “line loss” — the power lost during transmission — runs as high as 10% on our overloaded grid. The power lines take years to propose, approve, and complete … the federal government seems content to leave the owners of the old energy world in charge of designing the new one. Big utilities are pushing hard to do what they do best — getting the government to subsidize construction of multi-billion-dollar, far-flung, supersize solar and wind farms covering millions of acres, all connected via outsize transmission lines. Nevada senator Harry Reid has introduced legislation to speed the way for a national “electric superhighway.” ”

But there’s another way: the microgrid.

Writes Anya Kamenetz:

“The founder of the Alliance for Responsible Energy Policy, he’s no NIMBY complainer. “We’re just the opposite; we want it in our backyard,” he says. “We want to put solar panels on our roofs and our neighbors’ roofs.”

The nearby city of Palm Desert rolled out a program last August funding fixed-rate loans to private homeowners for rooftop solar, and within weeks, the money had been spent and panels were up on roofs. “The choice is clear,” says Harvey. “If you want renewables, you want ’em clean and you want ’em fast, and the best way to do that is [rooftops]. But the utilities have been so adamant about thwarting these programs. They are the ones that are standing in our way.”

The evidence is growing that privately owned, consumer-driven, small-scale, geographically distributed renewables could deliver a 100% green-energy future faster and cheaper than big power projects alone. Companies like GE and IBM are talking in terms of up to half of American homes generating their own electricity, renewably, within a decade. But distributed power — call it the “microgrid” — poses an existential threat to the business model the utilities have happily depended on for more than a century. No wonder so many of them are fighting the microgrid every step of the way.”

More details here.