Unbundling the Grid: Renewable Capital and the Demise of Electricity as a ‘Public Utility’ in the United States

One might think that renewable energies such as solar and wind are flow resources that are conducive to public ownership, but the vast majority of these renewables projects are privately owned. What explains this apparent paradox? This article focuses on the unique case of electricity in the United States to argue that renewable capital must be seen as a specific form of privatized wealth accumulation made possible by the ‘unbundling’ of electricity as a public utility. The article reviews the historical and legal origins of public utility law which argued that electricity was an essential service that should be insulated from market forces and competition. It explains how this consensus was disrupted during the neoliberal revolution of the 1970s, leading to three specific phenomena. First, unbundling allowed non‐utility generation projects, or ‘independent power producers’, to increase their share in the power‐generation mix. Second, rooftop solar emerged as an industry unhinged from the utility system, allowing affluent homeowners and solar installation companies alike to benefit. Third, the land‐intensive nature of renewables development cemented private landowners as central beneficiaries of renewable development through the extraction of rent. While the analysis primarily focuses on the US, the unbundling of public utility systems is now a global phenomenon.