In the early days of electrical generation electricity plants were a community affair. In 1883 one particular company, Edison Electric maintained 334 generators operating in manufacturing plants and various commercial operations. Communities simultaneously began to put in electrical power and it was all provided on a local level. For example one of several early facilities was in lower Manhattan serving 59 customers.

By 1900 60% of power was generated on site, however that started to change rapidly as the economies of scale began to favor large central power generating plants. Inside a 12 year span 70,000 small generators were scrapped for central production and by 1930 just twenty percent of electricity was generated on site.

At this point the problem was who was going to own and regulate the new centralized system of electric generation and distribution. The regulators decided that utilities would be guaranteed a return large enough to bring in shareholders and utilities had an obligation to serve electricity to all customers with high reliability.

By the early 70's the federal government urged utility companies to adopt nuclear power plants, each of which could possibly serve up to 4 million customers. This led to utility companies committing to mega nuclear plants and before anyone realized it, surplus electrical power was hitting 40%. Utility companies started marketing with such slogans as, "leave a porch light on". The electrical power glut led to the bankruptcy of a number of utilities. By 1990 market progress had soaked up excess capacity and in 1978 Congress abolished the original monopoly and created the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA) which directed utilities to purchase electrical power from independent power producers or IPPs.

In 1992 Congress deregulated the electrical market and allowed IPPs access to the nation's high voltage transmission lines making them common carriers. This brought about many problems checking whose electricity went where. Additionally electrical power would flow in loops looking for a customer. To compound the matter FERC approved a new thing in 1986 called an electricity marketer which changed how electrical power was bought and distributed. Additionally IPPs were producing more and more electrical power and in 1994 accounted for 75% of all new capacity. This group at this point had a lot of influence and began asking for more transmission lines to market their energy.

By 2008 a new group had emerged to lobby for extra higher voltage transmission lines. This group represented the alternative electricity groups as well as their backers.

Because of the nature of electrical production many high voltage transmission lines happen to be located in coal country. Coal fired plant's employment and fiscal support result in less enthusiastic support for renewables in those districts. With coal country resistance and lack of a carbon dioxide tax, renewable energy has experienced a difficult time taking hold until now.

The state of California conducted a solar farming in California resource assessment and found that the solar farm opportunity, excluding land due to environmental and practical issues, is more than 16,000,000 MW. Put another way, California requires less than 1% (0.32%) of its land dedicated to solar farm generators to achieve self-sufficiency from solar farm sites.

One particular company, Commercial Solar Design, is providing consultation and turn key expertise across the country for property owners who are interested in the potential of solar farming on their non-income producing or underused land. Look for part 2 of this post for more details on how property owners can proceed with blueprints for a solar farm.

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