Recent focus on distributed generation has not addressed how companies will fully meet increasing sustainability commitments, including goals of being “100% powered by renewable energy.” Customers and utilities are exploring new approaches that may close the gap between corporate sustainability commitments and energy offerings.

I. Introduction -

In 1747, Peter Collinson, the London agent of the Library Company of Philadelphia, shipped an “electric tube” to Benjamin Franklin that could be used to generate and transfer static electricity. In a subsequent letter of gratitude to Collinson, Franklin – a man known for his wide-ranging interests – wrote that as a result of his introduction to electricity, he “never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed [his] attention and [his] time as this has lately done” and that he “had little leisure for anything else.”

A definitive version of this article was subsequently published in The Electricity Journal, [Vol. 27, Issue 3, (April 2014)].