Smart grid history

To understand the smart grid, you need to first understand “the grid.” The grid, sometimes referred to as “the largest machine in the world,” refers to the massive network of transmission lines, substations, distribution lines, transformers, and other assets and technologies that deliver electricity from the power plant to your home or business. As a society, we’ve relied on the grid for more than 130 years to power our daily lives.

Present-day use of the grid encompasses how we work, communicate, socialize, and learn, and especially our prolific use of digital technology. With the increasing adoption of electric vehicles, the grid is increasingly being used for transport. Yet, as our uses and needs have evolved, our maintenance of, and investment in, the grid have not kept pace. We are now stretching beyond the grid’s ability to meet our needs. Not only is the system becoming more and more susceptible to blackouts, but outages also cost our economy tens of billions of dollars annually. Grid reliability issues also put our national security and public safety at risk.

As a result, the energy industry is undergoing sweeping changes. This includes utilities and energy providers meeting the quickly evolving expectations of customers. Consumers are not only looking to save money but are also wanting to manage their own end use and generate their own clean energy. Transitioning to a more robust, flexible, and resilient grid is the long-term challenge. Enter the “smart grid.”

Our introduction to the 21st century was defined by technology advances that increase connectivity and create value from data, the kind of advances that lend themselves to addressing the limitations and costs of our antiquated electrical grid. Emerging digital technology is being applied to communications between the utility and its customers. It’s also being used to “sense” problems on the grid itself. These are some of the technological characteristics that make the transforming grid “smart.” Like the internet, the smart grid is evolving to include advanced sensing, intelligent controls, distributed computing, automation, and new technologies and equipment that work together to meet our demands for electricity.

As for the people who are responsible for the grid, they are an ecosystem of asset owners, grid operators, utilities, manufacturers, service providers, and government officials at federal, state, and local levels. Oversight for nationwide transmission or the “bulk power system” occurs through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This commission, in turn, legally enforces the standards for electric grid reliability put forth by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. Relative to grid policy, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is the federal, cabinet-level department developing and executing energy policy and managing federal energy funding appropriated by Congress. Regulation of larger, investor-owned utilities takes place at the state level through public utility commissions, while smaller utilities such as cooperatives and “munis” are governed by member owners or local officials. Together, all these industry stakeholders contribute to funding, building, operating, and regulating the modern-day grid that society depends on for comfort and convenience, economic prosperity, and public safety. An automated, widely distributed energy delivery network, the smart grid is capable of monitoring everything from power plants to customer preferences and everything in between. It incorporates into the grid the benefits of distributed computing and communications to deliver real-time information and enable the near-instantaneous balance of supply and demand by providing the capability to manage at the device level.

A smarter grid is a necessity for the future. Take for instance electric vehicles. Enabled by the smart grid, these vehicles will number in the tens of millions by the end of this decade. Additionally, when light electric vehicles (i.e., cars and small trucks) are recharged at night, power plants are better able to meet U.S. electricity needs during times of peak demand in the day. The integrated communications control infrastructure inherent to the smart grid makes handling the load of electric vehicles simple and efficient.

Pacific Northwest