Smart Grid 101

The smart grid is being discussed by a lot of people these days.  Everyone from scientists to politicans are discussing ways not only to use less power, but to use electricity in smarter ways.  In fact, President Barack Obama asked Congress “to act without delay” to pass legislation that included doubling alternative energy production in the next three years and building a new electricity “smart grid”.

The video above does a good job of explaining what everyone is talking about.  It is not just a hypothetical though; some U.S. cities have already started adapting elements of a smart grid.  

In the US, the city of Austin, Texas has been working on building its smart grid since 2003, when its utility first replaced 1/3 of its manual meters with smart meters that communicate via a wireless mesh network. It currently manages 200,000 devices real-time (smart meters, smart thermostats, and sensors across its service area), and expects to be supporting 500,000 devices real-time in 2009. Boulder, Colorado completed the first phase of its smart grid project in August 2008. Both systems use the smart meter as a gateway to the home automation network (HAN) that controls smart sockets and devices. Some HAN designers favor decoupling control functions from the meter, out of concern of future mismatches with new standards and technologies available from the fast moving business segment of home electronic devices.

The Department of Energy website has good information on the smart grid and pdf that provides a good overview. 

Could St. Louis be next?

Posted by The Core Editor on May 19 2009. Filed under Environment, Going Green. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.