Unfortunately, the anology with telephone service doesn't really hold up. I doubt "broadcast" power could ever be practical. Since the concept's been around since (at least) 1950's sci-fi, you'd think that if it were feasible, someone would have tried by now. Electricity needs wires the way water (and sewer) needs pipes.

Actually, I don't think broadcast power is the way it will happen. For one thing, the efficiency of the process blows goats. For every watt you pick out of the air, thousands flow into outer space. There is some application for direct beamed transmission of power from orbiting satellites to specific receivers on the ground, which has much fewer losses.

I'm no expert, but I have been tracking the technology in several areas long enough to get the impression that we are close to a real commercial breakthrough in solar and/or fuel cell technology. Possibly a synergistic combination of both (solar power generating hydrogen for use in fuel cells at night).

The computer industry generated a massive infrastructure for making silicon wafers. It would not be hard to translate this into solar cell manufacturing. Efficiencies of low-cost cells now approach 20 percent. Fuel cell technology is exploding. There are issues of power conditioning, efficient conversion to AC, cell lifetime and durability, fuel cell materials, integration with the existing grid, and other things. None of these are real showstoppers. Maybe the "killer energy ap" will simply be a cheap fuel cell that uses converted natural gas. Almost everybody has access to gas.

I don't have the exact details of what kind of system will "turn the corner," or I'd end up retiring a lot sooner than I probably will. Still, I think that before too many more years have passed, people will be as accustomed to homes and buildings routinely generating their own power as they are accustomed to pulling a phone out of their pocket and talking to anyone on the planet.