Here is a situation that I think would be unfair to the power companies, and unsustainable. The Tesla Powerwall project aims to put small batteries in houses so that solar power can be saved up during the day and used at night. Suppose this pans out, and also solar arrays get cheaper and larger. A household with a solar array will no longer sell excess electricity to the power company, so the power company will not act as a broker, and it loses that source of revenue. The household seldom need to buy electricity, except in cloudy weather or late at night, so it buys no more than 5 or $10 worth of electricity per month. In other words, the household treats the power company like a standby backup generator used only occasionally.
If enough households and commercial accounts did this, it would be a disaster for the power company. The power company would be justified in asking for an arrangement like the one the Koch brothers recommended, where you pay $50 a month just to be hooked up to the power company. You pay that whether you use the electricity or not. However, if they tried to charge much more than thant, say $100, many people might cut the wire and discontinue electric company service. They would install a gas powered backup generator that turns on automatically. This costs about $3000 for a small 11 kW unit (2.5 years of $100 payments to the power company). If you are not power company customer there is no way they can charge you. I expect most people will soon cut the wire if cold fusion ever pans out. Some commentators have suggested that it would be more economical to install a small cold fusion generator with less capacity than you need, and then draw on the electric power company from time to time. I expect the incremental cost for a larger cold fusion generator will not be much, so there will be no point to installing a generator a little too small for your needs. If anything, you might want two generators, each with 2/3rds of your expected demand. If one of them fails, you stay online with the lights on while the repairman fixes it. Manufacturers might design a single unit that keeps running with tandem components. Back in the 1980s there were fault-tolerant tandem minicomputers. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandem_Computers After the technology matures, I expect cold fusion generators will cost roughly as much as today's standby generator. In other words, a cold fusion cell and steam turbine will cost roughly as much as the gas powered motor in a standby generator. You probably need a battery or super capacitor for load leveling, and you need a generator capable of nearly continuous duty. So it might end up costing a few thousand dollars more. You can see the range of power and the costs of today's standby generators here: http://www.lowes.com/Electrical/Generators/Home-Standby-Generators/_/N-1z0x2n8/pl# ! As I described in my book, you do not need as much electric power capacity as we use today, because many applications will use cold fusion heat directly. - Jed
