Such as reliability, efficiency, and cost. It is inherent that production of power nearer the point of consumption will result in higher efficiency and less loss in transmission. Having many smaller sources of power distributed over a bigger area is inherently less susceptible to natural disaster or sabotage. And production of power with high grade fuels such as natural gas, with the waste heat being used for hot water and space heating, is a much better use of the resource than space heating alone.

But money politics consistently has led to construction of low efficiency buildings and centralized power plants. The reasons are complex, but in large part policy is driven by big projects where sharpies can siphon off a few million here or there. It is much more difficult for special interests to profit handsomely from the construction of one house or building, or a small co-generation plant. So moneyed interests are going to put their efforts in big centralized plants.

Unfortunately my contribution to producing energy efficiently has been limited to my building activities and I have yet to do anything with actual power production. But it is on my agenda.