What is REV?

http://buffalorising.com/2015/01/reforming-the-energy-vision/

REV, or Reforming the Energy Vision, is a statewide initiative to enable accelerated deployment of distributed renewable resources such as solar and the intelligent management these resources and their use.

Aside from helping Long Island move towards a more sustainable energy future, REV also has a very strong potential to create thousands of new long-term jobs here on Long Island.  This is because REV’s inherent mandates would generate a demand to hire new workers who could update the grid, install solar panels and turbines, maintain solar panels and turbines (perhaps even engineers and mechanics to manufacture parts), and to fulfill other needs such as sales, construction, administration, etc.  While constructing new fossil fuel plants would produce a few hundred temporary jobs, in the end, these plants end up operating on fewer than 20 full-time employees.  Were Long Island to concentrate instead on shifting into a renewable energy economy, such as outlined in the Reformed Energy Vision, the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of jobs that would arise would be much longer lasting and more diverse. 

In what is likely to be considered the most revolutionary aspect of the plan, LIPA would no longer procure the type of power purchase agreements that monopolize power sources through 20-year contracts.  Rather, independent energy producers and electric service companies would be able to sell their electricity directly to the consumer.  As a result, consumers would be able to choose the source of their electricity in very much the same way they currently choose their oil or gas companies.

LIPA, who would continue to retain ownership of the grid, would instead exist to manage the integrity of the grid as well as create the protocols required for those in the energy-selling businesses to feed into it.