Power Projects Fire Up N.Y.'s 'Reforming the Energy Vision'

New York is gambling big on the idea that its electric utilities can transform the grid into a decentralized 21st-century energy system.

The state Public Service Commission has approved demonstration projects by New York's six investor-owned utilities that would test the waters for a more consumer-driven power market.  Under New York's ambitious Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) plan, the utilities will morph into hybrid roles as distribution grid operators that use their networks to deliver power from customers' solar units, storage batteries, microgrids and midsized upstate wind farms.

Under the REV plan, monopoly utilities that are the successors to Thomas Edison's central stations powering Manhattan in the late 19th century will coordinate demand-management programs and become the grid's general contractors in a new age of expanding power markets, digital communications and low-carbon energy.

That work is expected to extend well into next decade, according to Moody's Investors Service.

Utilities hope to discover whether customers will buy into a REV future that aims at greener and cheaper power without jeopardizing electric reliability and the utilities' financial viability.

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