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The new economic stimulus package set aside $11 billion in federal funding  for creation of a so-called "smart grid." But it's not clear what this national electricity delivery system will look like, how it will function or who will manage the information required to make the grid intelligent. Local power utilities can install the smart meters in homes that provide data about energy usage and constitute an integral part of the overall smart grid, but it's the cable and telephone companies that have the broadband infrastructure to send this info back to the utilities.

Over the next three years, Progress Energy, a Raleigh, N.C., power company, and the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg plan to equip some 5,000 homes and businesses in west St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach with special meters, sensors and switches to create one of the U.S.'s largest smart grids, according to Tampa Bay Online. If  the $15 million experiment is a success, Progress plans to incorporate smart-grid technology over the next 10 years in its most populated service areas, including Orlando and areas of Pinellas County in addition to St. Petersburg.

Intamac Systems Ltd., a U.K.-based maker of home alarm and monitoring systems, last week said it's negotiating with "major" U.S. telecom carriers to deliver energy metering services to broadband customers in the U.S., Greentechmedia.com reports. Intamac is already working with Bell Canada (which in 2007 started a pilot project to test its ability to deliver energy metering services to some of its broadband customers) and British Telecom, which is planning to add a similar capability to the Home Hub wireless router it offers BT broadband customers.

Of course, utilities might not want to share the smart-meter market with other service providers. Recognizing this, AT&T last week announced a slightly different approach—the company plans to take its wireless network along with "smart grid" sensors and software from SmartSynch, Inc., directly to the utilities themselves, enabling the utilities to monitor their own energy consumption as well as their customers' energy use.

The model for utilities managing their own smart meter information is working for Austin Energy in Texas, which in 2003  became one of the first U.S. utilities to set up a smart grid.  Some 65,000 of the utility's one million customers  are now on its smart meter system, GDS Publishing Ltd. reported on its Power & Energy Web site. Unlike the current electrical grid, where large amounts of energy are produced whether people need it or not, the smart grid would rely on information from energy consumers to determine how much energy to generate; such a grid could even purchase energy from consumers who produce their own power (via solar panels, wind or other means).

Given the wide open market that smart metering represents, even technology service providers are trying to get in on the action. Online search engine Google last month announced that it's developing software called PowerMeter, that will let consumers check out their home energy use in near real-time on their computers. No word on how long the testing will last before PowerMeter will be available for download.

Regardless of how individual homes and businesses are metered, the ideal national clean-energy smart grid would use long-distance, extra-high-voltage transmission lines to move remote clean-energy resources to power load centers and connect to a distribution system that delivers energy and detailed, real-time information about the use of such energy to consumers, the Center for American Progress (CAP)  said in a report released last month. The D.C. think tank (headed by John Podesta, former President Clinton's chief of staff and co chairman of President Obama's transition team) recommended that the grid be run like a national enterprise rather than by a patchwork of utilities, that is, that a central federal authority approve clean-energy projects across multiple states simultaneously (to keep construction of any one piece from being held back).

Image ©iStockphoto.com/ Nikada

5 Comments

1. 1. DonPaul 12:32 PM 3/24/09

   Utilities purchase and sell electricity. I decide how much to buy based on the price they charge and the utility of the product. While it would be nice to know in detail how I'm using the energy I purchase, as well as gain better control over this usage, perhaps thereby gaining some efficiency, I really don't see what business my electrical consumption activities are to either the utility that supplies the service of distributing the product or any other centralized authority. All that is needed to make the usage "smarter" is the sensing and control equipment and a home computer. It's an extremely bad idea to try to collect or control how electricity is used at a central authority. It creates a critical failure point. Anyway, it's the purpose of market prices to allocate resources. I thought the idea of detailed central planning of economic activities was debunked years ago with the fall of the USSR. Some bad ideas simply refuse to die. Generating useful energy consumption information is a great idea, but the "smart grid" is pure baloney.

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2. 2. hotblack 12:47 AM 3/26/09

   It's a shame, Don, that for the answer being so obvious and certain to you, the smartest professional engineers who actually work in the field don't agree with you. I'm sure they're all wrong, though, and it's all a big part of a communist conspiracy.
   
   Where the hell do they find you guys? ...oh, that's right, the internet...

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3. 3. dbrobes 03:01 PM 3/26/09

   I totally agree with DonPaul. The smart panels may be useful to consumers as a tool in order to judge usage and perhaps cut back some excess energy usage. However, it seems far-fetched and idealistic to think that this smart panel will cause Americans to completely change their way of lifestyle in order to reduce energy usage. That is, unless we are eventually forced to, which may be the case. We live in a digital age, and electronics require (gasp) electricity, which has to be created somehow, which (gasp) might produce carbon dioxide in the process. Maybe we should stop breathing too.
   
   hotblack, it may not be a communist conspiracy, but this smart panel and the whole smart grid is definitely a move in the direction of the government controlling every aspect of your life.

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4. 4. anubhav.sharma8034 06:25 AM 3/27/09

   this concept is really nice if it become successful then i think they shld share it with developing countries like india ,china so that they will learn something from it and rather than destroying their enviorment by creating new projects they will be able to utilize it in a better manner .

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5. 5. gervster 05:57 PM 4/15/09

   As far as I gathered, I believe the idea to implement a "smart grid" wasn't purely based on the consumer's point of view. Rather, the goal of the project was to gather information as to where energy is lost in the current, out-dated grid, and redirect it so to prevent unnecessary costs. Anyways, take a look at this very related article, might give you some concept of what's really going on here; http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=giving-the-power-grid-some-backbone

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