Applying the Principle of Locality: How to Build a Robust, Technology-Agnostic Regulatory Model for Tomorrow's Electrical Grid

The prevailing business, policy, and regulatory environment for electric utilities has evolved over the last century in response to certain broadly accepted attributes of the electric system?that steady growth in electric consumption and economies of scale necessitate investment in large, central, long-lived generating assets that deliver electricity, as a commodity, to consumers through a unidirectional transmission and distribution system. Today, this paradigm is challenged by a combination of technological and behavioral factors.