Introduction For most of the twentieth century, large-scale, fossil-fuel powered, utility-owned power plants dominated electricity generation in the United States. In recent decades, however, the electric sector has experienced a momentous shift toward renewable energy resources for electricity generation. For example, the share of electricity generated from wind and solar increased from two-tenths of 1% in 2000 (Fleischmann, 2016) to 7% in 2016 [Energy Information Administration (EIA), 2017].
