I’d like to speak to Jamie Dimon, please. As chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, he also oversees the bank’s infrastructure investment fund, which owns El Paso Electric. I would advise him that the electricity company of the future should be more like an Internet service provider. The Internet of Energy is coming, and it will revolutionize humanity as much as the Internet of Data has done over the past 40 years.
Our future electric utilities must wire every home and building within their jurisdiction so they can exchange electricity with each other. Individuals, businesses, non-profit organizations, and government agencies can produce their own electricity (using solar panels), store it (in electric vehicle fleets and home batteries), and then exchange it via the utility grid platform.
These utilities can then charge a 1% transaction fee on each electricity transfer, making profit in a whole new way. This platform will support our trade. Electricity is even poised to perform better as a currency than any form of cryptocurrency to date. The fair market value of a kilowatt-hour will be determined by supply, demand, and competition.
more:El Paso Electric faces record demands as it moves toward a clean energy future
We will soon be able to share electricity as easily as we can send money with the push of a button on our phones today. Can you photograph it?
Instead, El Paso Electric’s plan for our city in the 2020s is to build four new petropower plants to meet our city’s growing demand. The facility is subsidized by the state of Texas to build its new assets, and then turns to El Paso residents to repay them for their “investment.”
All the while, El Paso’s air quality continues to be degraded by utilities for decades to come, and our electricity bills continue to be artificially high.
We do not need huge petroleum power plants to meet our growing demand. The utility should motivate us all to install solar and batteries on our properties to decentralize the grid and promote this new internet.
more:Construction begins on El Paso’s largest solar power plant
Virtual power plant programs compensate volunteers (at fair market value) for some or all of their battery capacity to be pooled and converted into deployable assets for utilities to rely on during times of peak demand. VPPs show tremendous promise after their successful deployment in Puerto Rico to prevent power outages during severe hurricane seasons.
This future facility should still retain its own power generation capacity, but it will clearly be a much smaller operation than is currently required under its monopoly status.
Did you know that John Pierpont (J.P.) Morgan was the first American to have electricity in his own home? He was greatly involved in connecting the first neighborhood grids together and electrifying America for the first time.
Now is the time for his namesake bank and portfolio of influence (including El Paso Electric) to guide this legacy of energy innovation into the future.
Sam Celerio is owner of local solar installation company Sunshine City.
