The President emphasized the importance of smart meter technology and explained the concept in detail for families across America, “Smart meters will allow you to actually monitor how much energy your family is using by the month, by the week, by the day, or even by the hour. So coupled with other technologies, this is going to help you manage your electricity use and your budget at the same time, allowing you to conserve electricity during times when prices are highest, like hot summer days. Through these investments in a variety of smart grid technologies, utilities like Florida Power & Light will also be able to monitor the performance of its electricity grid in real time, which means they’ll be able to identify and correct service interruptions more quickly and effectively. And all this information will help increase renewable energy generation, provide support for plug-in electric vehicles, and reduce the carbon pollution that causes climate change.”

Obama summed up his momentous address with a balance of optimism and realism. “At this moment, there’s something big happening in America when it comes to creating a clean energy economy, but getting there will take a few more days like this one, and more projects like this one.”

This video by IEEE gives a brief, yet clear vision of the Smart Grid and what is required to make it a viable reality in the coming years.

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) has gone green, training unions across the US to install renewable energy systems and retrofit buildings for energy efficiency. The IBEW is determined to remain on the cutting edge of the Cleantech industry and will be training its local unions, starting with Local 11, to install iCeL’s intelligent energy storage systems. iCeL is very excited to work with the best electricians in the country, expanding the Smart Grid while creating green jobs for the skilled union members of America.

Kamanetz goes on to report, ”Companies like GE and IBM are talking in terms of up to half of American homes generating their own electricity, renewably, within a decade.” Are the predictions of these corporate giants just a bit far-fetched?

The New Energy Paradigm

The fossil fuel business may indeed be headed ironically towards extinction. Though thousands of huge coal and nuclear plants around the world still produce and transmit the majority of power on the planet, these toxin-spewing dinosaurs may just be facing a massive unforeseen shift in technology.
Renewable energy infrastructure is increasing in functionality while decreasing in cost. Efficient micro-turbines, mass produced solar panels, and advanced energy storage like iCEL Systems, are being paired with extensive renewable energy rebates from the government to finally make accessible to the masses all the necessary hardware for energy production.

Vanguard IT companies like Google and Cisco are jumping on board the energy train, jockeying to be the lead innovators in metering and communications for the rapidly approaching Smart Grid.

Public and private utilities may begin to lease their infrastructure and focus on managing the exchange of energy between individuals, rather than the distribution of energy from centralized power plants. A massive network of individual energy producers could generate and exchange power instantly with friends, neighbors, and business associates.

A Familiar Tale

Only a few decades ago, the word “computer” conjured up images of massive mainframes the size of an entire room. These analog behemoths sold for several million dollars and were solely owned by universities, governments, and other wealthy organizations. Operating these mainframe computers required a group of highly specialized professionals, and even with a trained staff to expedite the process, the delivery of information was slow and inefficient. Finally, with the advent of the transistor and eventually the integrated circuit, the computer finally reduced in size and cost.

Since that time, millions of people have taken part in a distributed and individually owned network of computers to generate digital information and exchange it through the Internet. Once you consider the massive and unpredicted explosion of the Internet, a microgrid of “privately owned, consumer-driven, small-scale, geographically distributed renewables” doesn’t seem so far-fetched after all.