Smart meter

Our electrical devices may be 21st century, but
the electrical grid we plug them into is strictly
20th. The grid is inefficient and prone to
breakdowns — as anyone who remembers the
great East Coast blackout of 2003 would
know. Improving the grid is going to be a vital
part of helping clean energy scale up: better
transmission lines are needed to carry wind-
generated electricity from the middle of the
U.S. to the more heavily populated coasts, for
example, while a more flexible grid can better
handle the intermittency of renewable power sources.
But the first installment on a smarter gird will
be smarter meters. Right now the electric
meter in your home tells you — and the
electric company — only the most basic
information. The majority of utilities won't
even know that homes have lost power in a
blackout until enough annoyed customers call
them. But smart meters connected to a
network can relay that sort of information
instantly, giving utilities and customers alike a
real-time picture of how much power is being
used at any given moment. And as new
appliances are networked into smart meters,
we'll be able to use them much more
efficiently — programming our washing
machines to run only during times of low
power demand, say. By smoothing out the
electricity demand curves, smart meters can
help utilities get more out of the power plants
they already have — and avoid building more.