mr. louis -- lucier, and mr. zippedder, we speak in terms of solar panels and i was in california and people were putting in distributed natural gas generators at their office buildings. comes to mind, mr. zindler, almost a prerequisite for renewables to be competitive is for high cost of electricity in that setting. to what degree distributed energy sectors, natural gas and these areas of high electricity like california as opposed to solar or wind? >> come back to you, i have to get back to you you about exact numbers but at least in the most recent years most of distributed phenomenon has been around solar. >> now is that in terms of volume of kilowatts produced or in terms of installations? >> i believe in -- certainly in terms of installations because obviously these pv systems can be very small. in terms of actual kilowatt hours produced probably still smaller margin as i understand pv. you raise a good point, there is interesting opportunity for gas and gas is finding its way into the economy in lots of di

mr. lucier. >> well, chairman murkowski, ranking member cantwell, senator cassidy, senator hoeven, thank you for the opportunity to testify before this committee. i'm honored you would request my views on the state of the electric power industry and the power markets. in these remarks i'll present high-level views on electric utilities, merchant power producers and the critical issues of price formation and market structure in the wholesale power markets. my name is james lucier. i'm managing director and head of the energy practice at capital alpha partners, an independent advisory firm that serves most institutional asset managers and financial participants in the power markets. i, personally, have been devoting the bulk of my time to the electric power industry and to the power markets since i first started following them as an analyst at the prudential equity group in the california power crisis of 2001. and 2000 and 2001 actually. so it's been an interesting 16 years. if i were to characteri

mr. lucier: that is a big open invitation. as bars putting the power storage on the grid and combining with the student generation on the edge of the grid is something that could revolutionize the industry. it provides a lot of solutions for many issues. i would point out the grid is a totality. while it has an edge, it also has a core. it is the core assets keeping the grid alight. back to discussions on things like artistic bent funding or stranded assets in the 1980's and 1990's, that led to distributed generation in the 1990's. these are not new issues. the key point is that power has a price. the grid has a price. regulators who do cost allocation are good at figuring that out. in market evolution we figure at ways to fairly priced resources, whether it is the energy or infrastructure sides. i'm confidence we will see a robust partnership develop. there is the opportunity for many thousands of flowers to bloom. that analogy, and i think that is what we get out of the grid -- a layer of efficiency. when i look at the abili

mr. and one half, program director for the global oil markets for the center on global energy policy located at columbia university. we also have james lucier who is the managing director for capital alpha partners. we have ethan zindler who has joined the committee here today as head of the americas and for new energy finance, and rounding things out is mr. daniel mcgroarty who is the principal at carmot strategic group. with that, mr. sieminski, if you would begin with the panel. i know you have a lot to say, so we'll probably have to go over are allocated five minutes. we are good with that because there's a fair amount of information i think needs biggest maybe just a couple of minutes. spirit we appreciate what people give to us and know that will also opportunities for expansion will become to the committee. if you would please start off. >> thank you, chairman murkowski, ranking member cantwell, senators cassidy and open. i appreciate the opportunity to provide testimony today on the u.s. energy outlook. the energy information administration is a statistical and analytical agency within the department of energy. but by about the i a'