ABSTRACT
The history of energy conversion in the modern world has generally been one of increasing scale because larger facilities can usually produce less expensive energy for the consumer. But the rationale for this historical trend has been called into question in our times. One reason is that the economy-of-scale phenomenon has ignored some important areas of increasing concern, such as health and environmental impacts. While it can’t be assumed that these impacts are disproportionately worse for a large plant than for a small plant, they are at the very least more publicly visible. Another reason to question the value of centralization concerns the economic calculation itself: centralized production of electricity at remote sites, which often characterizes large facilities, presupposes growing transmission networks. As a result, despite cost savings through higher voltage lines, the contribution of transmission and distribution costs to total electricity costs tends to become increasingly larger. 1
