ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes ongoing issues and discusses some options for their resolution. It focuses on decentralized electricity production (DEP), which is characterized by smaller, more diverse electricity generation technologies using a variety of nonrenewable, renewable or waste fuels, and which may be owned by nonutilities. The future development of DEP could be significant, but the actual level of growth is impossible to predict. The passage and implementation of Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act and related state programs raised a number of concerns about how DEP would impact state regulation, the utilities, and their customers. Distinguishing the affects of decentralized electricity production on utility planning from the affects of the broad system changes occurring throughout the electric power industry is not possible. Access to an electric utility's transmission lines to "wheel" power from one location to another is an issue of growing importance within the utility regulatory policy system.
