Unintentional side-effects of local renewable electricity production

An interesting point from a VentureBeat blog post "Smart grid could mean your energy bill goes up". Click here to go to the original post.

It points out that a homeowners who can afford solar panels and wind turbines create their own self-sufficient local energy and storage clusters that this may mean that many residents and even whole neighbourhoods disappear from the current national grids meaning that energy utilities will have to charge the remaining customers more.

This is likely to mean that it will be the less well off who a) don't benefit from the tax incentives and savings that local renewable energy systems may bring as well as b) paying more for their electricity from the major energy utilities.

So while sustainable energy use increases health and social inequalities may widen.