Future Grid

Live Stream

Co-Presented by
Getches-Wilkinson Center

The Recovery Act made a strategic investment of over $5 billion to upgrade the electrical grid. The promise of “smart grid” technology, as envisioned by the Energy Policy Act of 2006, depends on the development of interoperable smart grid standards and the development of an ecosystem around home energy management. Across the United States, a range of approaches are taking hold in this arena, with companies such as OPower, Simple Energy, Tendril, and Nest Labs (now owned by Google) creating opportunities for consumers to use energy more efficiently and participate more easily in “demand side management” programs.

The promise of the smart grid and enhanced home energy management remains a work-in-progress. As the Obama Administration has outlined in two White House reports (see here), there are a range of ongoing initiatives to encourage investments in updated technology, the adoption of interoperable standards, the sharing of data in a standard format, and the management of grid security. In this conference, we will evaluate the progress of such efforts, discussing (1) what technological upgrades of the grid are most cost-effective, (2) the role of the energy consumer in the new grid environment, and (3) what data issues (including privacy and security concerns as well as data analytics opportunities) are emerging as companies—ranging from electric utilities to companies like Nest—are capturing and storing consumer data.