The Smart Grid
Knowledge Brought to Power
A Smart Grid is an automated, widely distributed energy delivery network that is characterized by a two-way flow of electricity and information, and enhanced monitoring. A Smart Grid incorporates the benefits of advanced communications and information technologies to deliver real-time information and enable the near-instantaneous balance of supply and demand on the electrical grid.
It’s our future.
The Smart Grid is the electric delivery network from electrical generation to end-use customer integrated with the latest advances in digital and information technology to improve electric-system reliability, security and efficiency. More broadly, the Smart Grid is the internet brought to the utility, adding intelligence to revitalize the system rather than reinvent it.
Among its fundamental benefits:
- Exerting downward pressure on electricity prices
- Improving reliability and significant outage reduction
- Increasing grid robustness for improved grid security
- Reducing emission
- Integrating renewable energy
- Promising substantial job growth in areas from PV installation to grid-assisting technologies
- Revolutionizing not only the utility sector but the transportation sector through the integration of electric vehicles as generation and storage devices
- Increasing consumer awareness of energy use and carbon footprints through in-home displays and web-based portals
It’s also the law.
According to Title XIII, Section 1301 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), "it is the policy of the United States to support the modernization of the Nation’s electricity transmission and distribution system to maintain a reliable and secure electricity infrastructure that can meet future demand growth and achieve the goals that together define a Smart Grid."
About SmartGrid.gov
Modernizing the country's electrical grid is an urgent national priority. Implementing new Smart Grid technologies will help to revolutionize the production, transmission, and consumption of energy in the United States, and will impact every home and business connected to the electric grid. The Smart Grid will increase the reliability, efficiency, and security of the country’s electrical system, encourage consumers to reduce their energy use, and integrate all energy sources into the grid. By compiling Smart Grid information on SmartGrid.gov, site users will have the tools and resources they need to understand a wide range of Smart Grid technologies and projects that are entering the market now and will continue to play an important role in modernizing the electrical grid for the next decade.