What is a Smart Grid?

 

Have you ever wondered what a ‘smart grid’ actually is – or what is does?  President Obama has been talking up the need for a smart grid to help keep America sustainable and competitive – and in fact, the current proposed economic stimulus package includes $54 billion for renewable energy, energy efficiency and smart grid projects.

What exactly does it all mean? How does it affect your local area?

A smart grid delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using digital technology to save energy and cost.  Currently, our grid resembles a huge network of electrical roads and highways – some are high speed, with electrical traffic covering far distances and others cover a much shorter distance, moving at a slower pace. For this grid to work efficiently, electrical traffic needs to be kept at a steady, consistent pace throughout the grid. Too much “traffic” at one particular time can cause jams or bottlenecks in the system.

Because today’s power production is growing at a much faster rate than our grid capacity, it’s important to make sure that we can monitor and increase or decrease power to different parts of the grid to maintain consistent flow. Utilizing smart meters and smart appliances together with a smart grid, will give us control over our own power consumption and our electricity costs. All this will help to save money, protect us from power blackouts, create jobs and deliver clean, alternative forms of energy.

The above video clip from Siemens helps to put it all together.