We've been ahead of the curve with both the utilities and the state adopting programs since the 1980s,' the Rutgers-Camden professor explains. 'In New Jersey, we've been promoting energy efficiency for many years. In it, the two scholars outline how the electric power industry in the United States is looking at unprecedented fundamental change in the foreseeable future, and note that with appropriate incentives, free-market forces can work to integrate renewables into the New Jersey and Pennsylvania grids.Īggressive public policy plays a key role in that dynamic, according to Michelfelder. Grid: Is It Sustainable?,' is generating a buzz of its own.

Written with Peter Jansson, an associate professor of engineering at Rowan University, Michelfelder's article, 'Integrating Renewables into the U.S. Regardless of ownership, utilities are in the best position to promote energy efficiency, and should be in the business of providing expertise on it,' says the Rutgers-Camden researcher. 'There are utility companies owned by state entities, by federal entities, some owned by private investors. His solution? Place the responsibility for promoting and exploring energy efficiency on the shoulders of utility companies, which are uniquely situated to take on the challenge because of their longtime role in generating and transporting energy to almost all consumers of electricity. 'When you start adding random assets to the grid, you also add the possibility of disruptions in the coordination of the flow of electricity,' says Michelfelder. The consequence, he fears, might well be a disastrous overload of the nation's electrical grid.Īn assistant professor of finance at the Rutgers School of Business-Camden and former president and CEO of Quantum Consulting Inc., a national public utilities consulting firm based in Berkeley, Cal., Michelfelder comes to his assessment after a quarter-century in the energy-technology industry. With the electric-power industry poised for its most dramatic changes in decades, too little thought is being devoted to coordinating these piecemeal initiatives, warns Richard Michelfelder in a recent edition of The Electricity Journal, the leading policy journal for the electric industry. A Rutgers School of Business-Camden professor has strong words of caution as projects involving wind farms and photovoltaic cells proliferate. Engineers and entrepreneurs are rushing to explore alternative sources of efficient and renewable energy in New Jersey and elsewhere in the country.

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