Stimulus Dollars Energize Efforts To Smarten Up the Electric Power Grid - washingtonpost.com

Smart grid is an essential component of President Obama's plan to change the nation's energy habits and reduce U.S. dependence on fossil fuels, especially foreign oil. It would energize his hopes for more jobs and fewer pollutants while remaking a network still moored to the 1950s.

The computer-based upgrade will become all the more important if Obama succeeds in creating a cap-and-trade system that would charge companies for excessive carbon emissions. That policy would put a premium on conservation and the delivery of solar and wind energy.

Smart grid refers to an array of switches, sensors and computer chips that will be installed at various stages in the energy-delivery process -- in power stations, in electricity meters, in clothes dryers -- in the next two decades, if the vision holds and the technology works.

"It's going to work," vowed Duke Energy's chief technology officer, David W. Mohler.

While sporadic improvements to the transmission system are underway, no city has yet been wired. Much of Boulder, Colo., may be first, later this year.

Stimulus Dollars Energize Efforts To Smarten Up the Electric Power Grid - washingtonpost.com

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