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Some perspective here, as someone who has done work in the power industry.

30 MW is a very, very small amount of generation capacity. I have been to a generation facility where a 25MW diesel generator was the thing used to jump-start the rest of the plant...which was only about a 450 MW facility. 30 MW is pocket change in the power industry, a rounding error. Even small "peaker" CT plants typically produce at least 10x that amount when in service.

Now, for the cost per KWh. The price cited above is what National Grid is paying; it's wholesale. Do not compare it to your final KWh price from your electric bill; those rates are not equivalent, as the one on your bill includes T&D fees, some profit for the power company that serves you, and other things. According to the New England ISO (the regional authority that includes Rhode Island), a good example is (scroll down to see it) a bit more than four cents per KWh. So, this electricity is about 10x the cost of current generation.

Now...why am I pointing this out? Context. People in Slashdot have been going on and on like renewable energy is all good to go, and they can't possibly figure out why power companies aren't letting everyone just build turbines and solar panels all over the place. They see how the cost of solar panels is going down, but don't take into account the anti-islanding gear that is mandatory, the most expensive part of a solar installation, and which is static in price. They think about how windmills can generate power like crazy, but don't think about problems like VARS support needed to move the electricity from far away...since wind farms are noisy, real estate-intensive, and distant because reliable wind is often not near population centers. They want everyone to just put solar panels on their homes, but don't take into account what Hawaii found out...that doing so, even under the very best of circumstances, can be incredibly destabilizing to the power grid due to the need to balance sink and generation.

Yes, these technologies are needed. Yes, they will be improved. But for God's sake, please do keep in mind that they are NOT ready to supplant nuclear or fossil generation capabilities just yet. And you have to consider the whole situation...you don't just stand up a wind turbine and plug it into the grid. It's a hell of a lot more complicated than that and it's crazy expensive.

On a brighter and final note...if it turns out to be a truly viable product, I'm planning to get a Tesla solar roof in the next 5-10 years. When you consider the fact that it serves a dual purpose of both roof and solar generation unit, the cost impact flips from being more expensive than simply buying all my power to cheaper than buying both a roof and all of my power. This is the kind of innovation that will make things work. As for the destabilizing effects, power companies are rolling out WAMPAC (which is a small constellation of technologies and capabilities) that help with that by providing better visibility into grid operations along with automation to manage issues as they arise. So we are headed in the right direction, and will get there.

There are many ISO ( Independant System Operators ) that manage the power grids in the US. They are not "power companies". CA ISO, Midwest ISO, ISO New England, PJM, and the Southwest Power Pool. One of the larger ones, CAISO, manages the power grid for California.

There is ISO New England that manages the power for Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, MA, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. I know for a fact this company is a not-for profit. One of their mandates is to maintain the grid in a way that is cost effective to the end customers. They don't allow the power generators to rape the public. They monitor things VERY closely to ensure that no one is manipulating the market to make extra profit at the expense of the general consumers.

Your fears are born of ignorance; have no worry.

Environmental Issues are not self-regulated; "fortunately" (tongue-in-cheek) we have the government to police it for us. Bulk power generators are very regulated on emissions, even to the point that generators will take outages for "opacity" indicating they have reached their "pollution credit" limit and can't generate electricity anymore.

Market Monitoring, however, is self-regulating, and so far has proven to be a critical source of improvement. They are tasked with finding market power issues, and defusing them so noone has unfair advantages over any other players. For the east coast players, PJM, NYISO, ISO-NE... California ISO used to have one, until they dismantled their market, not sure what happened to it. S.E.Trans (~4 states in SouthEast) agreements fell apart. ERCOT (Texas) is pretty well along (I seem to recall a market overhaul brought on by recommendations on local pricing), and MISO was going to start a market, but after the blackout decided to delay theirs... and the rest of the country is barely ready to de-regulate.

I fear more about the regulated utilities, because they operate in a closed fashion, socializing the cost of their problems over all their customers, and preventing outside entities from building improvements in their systems...

Check out NE power grid real time info, it shows a MAJOR drop off in current flow to NYC at around 4:15, and it's still declining ... Real Time Market External Interface Summary

There is ISO New England (http://www.iso-ne.com/) that does New England.
New York ISO http://www.nyiso.com for New England
PJM Interconnectionhttp://www.pjm.com/Who handles Penn/New Jersey/Maryland
Mid West ISO (http://www.midwestiso.org/ which does most of the Mid West.

And others (You can find them at http://www.iso-ne.com/industry_links/..

These are just SOME of the players. The Grids are ALL connected (through one another). ISO New England regularly sells/buys from New York and Onterio. NY sells/purchases from PJM, etc.

There is ISO New England (http://www.iso-ne.com/) that does New England.
New York ISO http://www.nyiso.com for New England
PJM Interconnectionhttp://www.pjm.com/Who handles Penn/New Jersey/Maryland
Mid West ISO (http://www.midwestiso.org/ which does most of the Mid West.

And others (You can find them at http://www.iso-ne.com/industry_links/..

These are just SOME of the players. The Grids are ALL connected (through one another). ISO New England regularly sells/buys from New York and Onterio. NY sells/purchases from PJM, etc.

There is always concern because of the growth in home electronics over the past few years; I'm definitely guilty of adding to the demand... Last summer caught us by surprise, not because of lack of generation, but because of reactive power modeling errors, but that event, not to mention Y2K, made us take a hard look, and all of our models are correct to the best of our knowledge.

As to the NIMBY phenomena, I point you to our Queue A map as to where new (planned) generation is scheduled to be built in our zone. Its a double-edged sword; everyone wants the electricity, but noone wants the plant in their county.. But if you put the plant too far away, then you have the added problems with transmission...

Other ISO's:

California

New England

New York

Keep in mind that the CNET article was entirely about CalISO (which is only a few years old and not as developed yet as the east coast) which is only one piece of the entire puzzle. And I'm sure "HomePower" thanks you for the free advertisement, but I hope next time you at Slashdot try to cover the other angles in the story first, other than the pop-answer. Rememeber, one Nuclear plant generates over 1100 MW of power, thats 1,100,000,000 Watts, or about 167,000 times the output of the lead article on HomePower, and those people are the exception, not the rule.

-- Scott

Oh, btw, if it gets back to me, I'm not an official representative of PJM LLC. Thats what Customer Relations is for.