ABSTRACT
Historically, customer demand was taken as a “given” in the electric power sector while the supply side adjusted to meet it at all times. This paradigm is undergoing radical shift for at least two reasons. First, the generation will be increasingly dominated by renewable resources, many of which are variable and non-dispatchable. Second, consumers have a host of options that offers new ways of generating, storing, trading, and sharing energy on their side of the meter and/or with their peers. In time, the latter promises to change the relationships between the consumers and providers of electricity services.
