ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the competitive opportunities, as well as the current barriers, to distributed energy resources (DER) applications. One of the more interesting technological innovations has been associated with DER. DERs, simply put, are small power generation and storage applications, usually located at or very near customer loads. There are a number of financial disincentives that utility distribution company will have in supporting any customer-initiated DER applications. Three of the more common barriers for DER are related to standards for interconnection, pricing, and backup service that are influenced heavily by regulation and the continued monopoly status of distribution operations and services in restructured markets. Microturbines are essentially mini-jet aircraft engines that in many ways are based upon the same aerospace technologies that revolutionized the larger-combustion turbine market of the electric power industry. Despite industry restructuring, regulation will continue to play an important role in the delivery of electricity to end users.
