Distributing the load: distributed resources bring generation close to home

This paper provides a brief introduction to the various articles that are contained in this issue of the IEEE Power & Energy Magazine. These articles include photovoltaics and their application in power systems, optimization of distribution planning, and the requirements associated with and the necessity to island these facilities. This issue also features an article that looks at the similarities between the August 14, 2003 blackout and the Western System collapse of 1996 and the lessons that have, and have not, been learned as a result. Other articles cover renewable energy and its potential impact in the US, a paradigm for assigning business values to data and information produced while processing energy, and the beginnings of the electric car in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.