The Digitalization of Power

For most of my life, music recordings had been played through mechanical devices that spun, from the phonograph to cassettes to CDs. Today, music is purely digital and the advances toward digitalization have radically changed how music is played and distributed. We no longer go to the record store to buy music and the number of artists with recordings that can be easily purchased has increased dramatically. Moreover, my CDs have become a stranded asset.

A similar transformation is underway with power supply, where generators that spin to produce electricity are being replaced by digital systems of solar plus batteries. The costs of digital power supply technology will continue to decline and displace conventional generation with technological advances. While future power systems will likely involve a significant portion of hydro and wind generation that still turn generators to produce electricity, the digital transformation of power supply has taken root. The continued advances in in digital power supply systems will provide more compelling and often unavoidable economic merit over traditional generation. This will continue to cause disruption to the power industry as inflexible thermal generation fall prey to technological advances of digital power systems and become stranded assets much like my CDs.

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