Making the Consumer an Active Participant in the Grid - NYTimes.com

By ERICA GIES

Published: November 29, 2010

"In his view, the energy future of the United States looks radically different from its past. Most notably, he sees consumers as active parts of the grid, providing energy via their own solar panels or wind turbines, a system called distributed generation; stabilizing the grid by adjusting demand through intelligent appliances or behavior modification, known as demand response; and storing energy for various grid tasks. He thinks consumers should get paid to provide these services."