Thomas Alva Edison, meet the Internet.
More than a century after Edison invented a reliable light bulb, the nation’s electricity distribution system, an aging spider web of power lines, is poised to move into the digital age.
The “smart grid” has become the buzz of the electric power industry, at the White House and among members of Congress. President Barack Obama says it’s essential to boost development wind and solar power, get people to use less energy and tackle climate change.
What smart grid visionaries see coming are home thermostats and individual appliances that adjust automatically based on the cost of power, and water heaters that can draw power from a neighbor’s rooftop solar panel. They see a time when, on a scorching hot day, a plug-in hybrid electric car charges one minute and a few moments later sends electricity back into the grid to help avert a brownout.
Also coming are utilities that get instant feedback on a transformer outage or shift easily among energy sources from wind turbines to coal-burning power plants and back to the turbines when the wind begins to blow again.
And, from miles away, power companies will peer into homes and businesses, then automatically lower thermostats or adjust power use, depending on demand and prearranged agreements.
“It’s the marriage of information technology and automation technology with the existing electricity network. This is the energy Internet,” said Bob Gilligan, vice president for transmission at GE Energy, one of many companies aggressively pursuing smart grid development. “There are going to be applications 10 years from now that you and I have no idea that we’re going to want or need or think are essential to our lives.”
Hundreds of technology companies, fledgling venture capitalists, longtime corporate icons and almost every major electric utility company want to be part of the grid modernization. Interest…