Smart Grids

Intelligent electricity delivery system
Essentially, a smart grid is an intelligent electricity delivery system, in which energy suppliers and consumers are all interconnected through a network. Smart meters are installed in homes and businesses to monitor energy consumption and transmit that information back to energy providers. Energy providers not only have the ability to track energy consumption, but also to automatically throttle down energy consumption on a granular level when demand gets too high.

For example, participating users, be they businesses or home owners, might agree to have their building's air conditioning systems automatically turned down, or certain lights turned off, during peak hours when the grid is being heavily taxed. That reduces the strain on the grid, thus helping to prevent rolling blackouts and costly downtime.

Power reduction during peak hours
This evolving intelligent power distribution network makes it possible to:

• Reduce power consumption during peak hours (Demand Side Management)
• Facilitate grid connection of distributed power generation (with photovoltaic arrays, small wind turbines, micro hydro, or even combined heat and power generators in buildings)
• Improve reliability against many different component failure scenarios