Smart Grid: the Next Big Thing

We've posted about this before. Now the Economist has a story about the coming benefits of a "smart grid" electrical transmission system:

A global movement is afoot to make grids “smart”. This means adding all kinds of information technology, such as sensors, digital meters and a communications network akin to the internet, to the dumb wires. Among other things, a smart grid would be able to avoid outages, save energy and help other green undertakings, such as electric cars and distributed generation. . . .

With smart grids, there should be no need to send out lorries and ring doorbells when the power fails. A few mouse clicks may do the trick, or the equipment may even fix itself. Sensors on transmission lines and smart meters on customers’ premises tell the utility where the fault is and smart switches then route power around it. That is similar to the internet, which redirects data packets if they get stuck.

A more resilient grid, however, is the less important half of the story. All told, estimates the Brattle Group, a consultancy, the benefits from a smart grid could amount to $227 billion over the next 40 years in America alone. Just as the original grid facilitated the industrial innovations of the 20th century, the smart grid should support the green advances of the 21st. “Without it, most of the other green technology won’t work,” says Ben Kortlang of KPCB, a Silicon Valley venture-capital firm that recently invested in Silver Spring.

The full story is here.