This is a guest post by Steve Piper. Steve has a M. S. in Public Management and has been a consultant in the utilities business (primarily electricity) for the last 20 years.

A couple of months ago, posters on The Oil Drum raised the question of whether installing large amounts of grid-connected power at the residential level (solar panels, small wind turbines, and the like) would disrupt the grid.

There is a standard (IEEE 1547) covering safe interconnection of small power facilities to the grid. Comparing the amount of increase likely in solar panels and in residential wind turbines with the allowances for disruptions of various types in standard IEEE 1547, it appears that the adding these devices should not be unduly disruptive. The only exception might be in areas with unusually high grid penetrations of these auxiliary devices.