This recent post from a WSJ Blog elicited at least one particularly relevant response as it relates to the educational challenge utility companies and their technology partners face in the evolution of the smart grid:
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2009/10/20/smart-phone-will-clean-energy-be-apples-killer-app/
One commenter wrote: The infrastructure needed for these applications to actually be useful doesn’t exist yet and won’t exist for decades, if ever. In my home, I’ve got a lot of appliances that use electricity. None of them are capable of communicating with anything, including an iPhone. They all work fine and I’m in no hurry to replace any of them so that I can save $0.33 a year on my electric bill.
A true smart grid may take 20 - 30 years to fully realize, and most people will certainly not be rushing out to replace their appliances just so that they can communicate their respective energy usage to the meter. However, we can expect significant and numerous steps to occur over the next several years in an effort to simply make our grid “smarter”. One of the key success criteria for these initial advancements will be to demonstrate cost benefits to the consumer (without requiring investments in new smart appliances).
Additionally, many would be surprised at the infrastructure investments that utilities have already made in the modernization of our electrical grid. NStar and United Illumniating utility companies in New England, for example, have been investing in real-time grid monitoring technologies for years to ensure that they're properly positioned for the future (which is now).
With $4.5 billion in stimulus funds (2009 Recovery Act) being doled out in Q409 into 2010, I think we can expect to see some worthwhile energy conservation opportunities for residents in smart grid pilots unfolding across the country in the near future.
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