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" For many Americans, the first time they heard the term &amp;quot;smart grid&amp;quot; was in a campaign promise. During the 2008 presidential race, McCain and Obama both used it in stump speeches and debates, sometimes associating it with the necessary preparations for a flood of plug-in hybrid vehicles, sometimes as a simple upgrade to our stressed and seemingly fragile electrical grid. Further definition might not have seemed necessary--it&amp;#039;s a grid, and it&amp;#039;s smart, which is clearly better than a dumb one. But with $4.5 billion of the stimulus bill slated for projects related to the smart grid, the question now needs to be answered: What, exactly, is the smart grid? That depends on who you ask. The Department of Energy&amp;#039;s 48-page primer, &amp;quot;The Smart Grid: An Introduction,&amp;quot; tries to separate what it calls a &amp;quot;smarter grid&amp;quot; from the smart grid. The first is a near-term upgrade, and the other one is, in the DOE&amp;#039;s own words, &amp;quot;a grid remarkable in its intelligence and impressive in its scope,&amp;quot; which will &amp;quot;spur the kind of transformation that the Internet has already brought to the way we live, work, play and learn.&amp;quot; In the most general sense, the smart grid refers to adding digital, two-way communication to the existing snarl of power transmission and distribution infrastructure. With increased data flowing across the network, grid managers would have more warning when demand spikes and more opportunities to juggle electricity among various locations before a brownout or a blackout is triggered. Consumers would be in the loop, too, tracking their consumption in real time, possibly accepting offers to lower their electricity usage for a given period in exchange for a discount on their next bill. Since demand is expected to grow at roughly twice the rate of production, the smart grid, it seems, is all about harnessing data to dodge power outages. But experts say the smart grid is also intended to reduce overall demand, increase the efficiency of transmission and distribution lines and more seamlessly integrate solar and wind power. Nothing, it seems, has been left out of this vision (which could have just as easily been named Grid 2.0, or Next-Gen Grid). Except, that is, for a tangible plan, or even a set of priorities.  From Smart Meters to Intelligent Ones &amp;quot;The term smart grid is being reused in different technology domains, and I think it&amp;#039;s actually confusing people,&amp;quot; says H. Scott Matthews, research director at Carnegie Mellon University&amp;#039;s Green Design Institute. &amp;quot;There are smart grid issues that are grid management issues. And then there&amp;#039;s smart metering, which is taking information, and sending it back to the utilities. Inevitably, that gets referred to as smart grid technology, which is not helpful.&amp;quot; Smart meters, which have been installed in millions of households, are not consumer-oriented tools--they feed usage data directly to electrical utilities, allowing for automated metering. &amp;quot;Politicians mix these terms up desperately,&amp;quot; Matthews says. &amp;quot;I am an expert on what these terms mean, and I&amp;#039;m relatively confused,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;I can only imagine how the average consumer feels.&amp;quot;  With studies indicating that consumers use as much as 20 percent less electricity when provided with real-time consumption data, Matthews believes that better meters could have the biggest single impact of the various initiatives under the smart grid umbrella. &amp;quot;This is what the general public is being promised,&amp;quot; Matthews says. &amp;quot;If people hear we&amp;#039;re investing $15 billion in the smart grid, they&amp;#039;re going to be disappointed if they hear that it&amp;#039;s going to utilities,&amp;quot; where the money can be spent on whatever aspect of the grid--smart or not--the utilities choose.  For Grid Operators, A Power-Sharing Agreement There&amp;#039;s another potential problem with lumping the entire future of the grid into a poorly defined buzzword. Utility-controlled refrigerators and grid visualization software might help grid managers predict a mid-August brownout, but these are emergency countermeasures, intended to kick in during brief spikes in demand. These aspects of grid management won&amp;#039;t make possible permanent increases in power consumption. What if plug-in hybrid electric vehicles become a mainstay in American households? This switch could lower American consumption in oil while significantly increasing the demand for electricity. &amp;quot;Can our existing system handle it? Given that the grid is stressed already, probably not,&amp;quot; says Brad Allenby, a professor of civil, environmental and sustainable engineering at Arizona State University. &amp;quot;The difficulty with the smart grid, as a term, is that it implies a technological issue. The biggest barriers to implementing more intelligent electrical systems are probably not going to be technological, but financial and institutional. We&amp;#039;re trivializing the problem in ways that almost guarantee that we will optimize subsystems, while the entire system remains vulnerable.&amp;quot; For example, provided that all of the roughly 500 separate entities that share management of the grid start swapping out their existing infrastructure for upgraded, digital transmission and distribution lines, there are no industry-wide standards for smart grid hardware or communications. And if standards are proposed in the future, there are no existing incentives to adopt them. So while intelligent metering might shave overall demand, and smart appliances might help avert peak-demand outages, the first step in preparing for the great American plug-in spike (or any other permanent power increase, for that matter) is to come up with a plan that allows grid operators to trade supply across vast distances. &amp;quot;If I&amp;#039;m able to wield power from Arizona to Northern California, I can at least statistically balance the few days the sun isn&amp;#039;t shining in Arizona with the days the wind isn&amp;#039;t blowing in Northern California,&amp;quot; says Allenby. &amp;quot;We need a national-scale grid initiative, that increases the flexibility and agility of the assets we already have, and allows me to provide large amounts of power wherever it&amp;#039;s needed. Then I have a chance of at least being able to mitigate the demands of that kind of demand spike.&amp;quot; This is a colossal task, and one that occupies a small corner of the sprawling smart grid vision. It&amp;#039;s not that Whirlpool&amp;#039;s smart washing machines or Boulder, Colorado&amp;#039;s upcoming experiment with Web-accessible meters are bad ideas. But if Allenby is right, and we are not prepared for a permanent boost in demand then time might be running out to convert general smart grid buzz into a focused push for intelligent grid management. The first step is to make sure the attention--and the cash flow--is directed at the smartest parts of the smart grid, like intelligent meters and more seamless interaction between the nation&amp;#039;s grid operators. It&amp;#039;s going to take precise action, not a branding campaign, to keep the grid up and running.  RELATED STORIES * EARLIER: Can Offshore Grids Solve Our Wind Power Woes?  * PLUS: U.S. Looks to Hydropower as Untapped Energy Source  * REBUILDING AMERICA: Fixing the U.S. Electrical Grid   What, exactly, is a smart grid? (Photo by Getty Images/Mareen Fischinger) "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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