federal pre-emption for rate and siting regulation; or (3) have federal ownership of ground stations, and sale of bulk power to local utilities. Considering the financing, risk and lead time for the SPS, as well as the contractual and planning time that is involved, utilities would require strong incentives for early involvement in the SPS. Guarantees and long-lived contracts on SPS development scheduling, pricing, and legal liability are critical to successful integration with utilities, especially to solicit them as rectenna owners. It is clear that the SPS poses special problems with regard to technical integration issues. Among these are power fluctuations, power level control, stability, reliability, generation size (5 GW) and utility mix requirements. However, a mapping exercise incorporating the probable distribution of demand load centers and rectenna sites determined that these obstacles could be overcome. Sites were limited to "eligible" areas, as defined in the parallel rectenna siting study,5 and further constrained by key proxies for critical utility planning and operations integration considerations. These key proxies are: • That the rectennas be allocated to each region in the proportions indicated by the 1995-2000 electric generation capacity. • That each rectenna be sited within the ERC region served or, at worst, within 100 km of that regional boundary. • That SPS power provide no more than 25 percent of the peakload power of any load center. • That each rectenna distribute its power along five transmission corridors, each carrying approximately 1000 megawatts (MW). • That no transmission corridor exceed 500 km (approximately 300 miles). It was found that even with these rather severe constraints, 60 SPS units could be integrated into projected utility networks using state-of-the-art transmission and generation technology. Few technical/operational disincentives exist in the integration of 5 GW increments of SPS power. As long as SPS represents less than roughly 15 percent of a system's capacity (25 percent baseload), few problems arise with regard to system reliability. However,
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