Also, if a substantial portion of our power supply is going to come from intermittently available sources, then the switching technology in the grid is going to have to be a little more sophisticated.
Also would you please describe what about the switching technology in the grid is going to have to get better? Or cite some source that does so?
A friend of mine who does large-scale systems designs (he designs power and cooling systems for little things like international airports and the Gates Foundations new buildings) once said that our current power lines sacrifice close to 30% of the energy that they're supposed to be transmitting. By any rational measure in this day and age, that alone qualifies our grid as "crap" already, but the fact that a software bug shut down most of New England for several days three or four years ago doesn't cast any positive light on our pitifully outdated infrastructure.
"Transmission and distribution losses in the USA were estimated at 7.2% in 1995 [13] and 6.5% in 2007[14]. In general, losses are estimated from the discrepancy between energy produced (as reported by power plants) and energy sold to end customers; the difference between what is produced and what is consumed constitute transmission and distribution losses."
This is part of why the idea of switching from big centralized power-plants to small localized plants is a big potential win.
