Bank of power meters

Net metering policies now exist in 37 states, which allow private utility consumers to generate electricity and sell it back to the power companies. Often times the method of producing electricity is from renewable energy resources. In essence, a customer's electric meter can run both forward and backward in the same metering period and the customer is only charged for the net amount of power used. This policy is setting the stage for small-scale distributed generation of electricity.

There may come a day when electricity generated by in-home fuel cells provide power for domestic use with the excess sold to the power company. Currently, the cost of generating electricity with a fuel cell is about $3000 to $4000 per kilowatt and in order for fuel cell generated electricity to become competitive the production cost needs to be decreased by a factor of 10. By comparison a diesel generator costs $800 to $1,500 per kilowatt, and a natural gas turbine can be even less.

Distributed generation of electricity by renewable resources is important because electricity generation contributes about 40 percent of the CO₂ emissions in the United States largely as a result of coal’s being the source for 50 percent of electricity generation; natural gas is the source for 17 percent ⁽¹⁾.