Citizen Power

As you have probably heard, there were billions of dollars in the stimulus plan for a new “smart grid” for the United States.  But they have only allocated  $11 billion and as Rachel Maddow says, you should add a “zero” on the end of that number to even get close to the amount of money we’ll need to build a new national smart grid.  In fact, I remember in the summer of 2004,  New York and some other areas on the east coast lost all their power for a disconcerting period of time and at the time they were discussing a new electricity grid. The amount they were discussing was about $500 billion dollars.  So why has the price gone down?  It won’t be enough. And I would think if the Democrats are asking for money in a highly-support stimulus bill, they should have asked for a large enough amount to actually build a new “Smart Grid”.  Still, at least they will get a start on the new grid, which we badly need!

But the Smart Grid is the nation-wide, physical end of it. Another side of the new smart grid will be a combination of metering, software and the technical set-up.  Google is testing software that will let consumers get detailed information on how much electricity they’re using, which could help households reduce consumption by as much as 15 percent.   PowerMeter will integrate into the company’s iGoogle,  where users create a customized page with lightweight Web-based applications. The PowerMeter is designed to show a granular, real-time view of electricity-consuming devices.  Once you are signed up, you can monitor your usage.  Supposedly, you’ll be able to turn it off, and Google says it will not share any of this information with the government or anyone else.  Count me in as skeptical on that one. If the government is going to run the Smart Grid, this PowerMeter information will not be secret.   But does that matter?  And privacy in the U.S. is mostly gone already anyway.

Google and GE are already getting a start on this by teaming up.  Also involved:  IBM, General Electric, Acorn Energy and “a bevy of others”.   Why them?  Simple profit potential.   IBM is already developing a beta test grid in Malta .  Of course, Google uses more electricity online than probably any other company, in part because they are always expanding.   It seems every week we hear of a new segment of the web they own or control and they are experts in software and analytics.

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