As Pacific Gas & Electric, Governor Newsom, and other stakeholders work to develop a solution to the structure of Northern California’s electric utility, it is worthwhile to revisit the energy crisis at the turn of the century. Arthur O’Donnell’s Soul of the Grid: A Cultural Biography of the California Independent System Operator steps into the inner workings of the deregulation efforts of the late 1990’s and the crisis that ensued in the early 2000’s.
Technology and Transformation in the American Electric Utility Industry, Richard F. Hirsh
Hirsh provides a broad overview of technology history in the electric utility industry that includes large scale generation capturing economies of scale over the decades from the 1920s to the 1960s and significant collaboration with large electric utility vendors (e.g. Siemens, ABB, GE, Schneider) to a more complex, less straightforward environment in the 1990s when the book was written. An important reflection given the added complexity from Distributed Energy Resources today.
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/models-innovation
Models of Innovation, Benoit Godin
- Mr. Godin presents a comprehensive history of models for innovation from Schumpeter and Maclaurin to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), from linear models (fundamental research => applied research => engineering development => production engineering => service engineering) to holistic relationships (systems).