…what the heck is a smart grid?
Simplifying drastically, it’s bringing the benefits of the internet to our aging system of electrical wires, transformers, and meters
The idea is to reduce the electricity that gets lost in transit—some 7 percent of electricity gets lost that way—and to eliminate unnecessary fossil fuel burning by electric utilities…
Waste Not, Want Not: Energy via the Smart Grid: Scientific American Podcast.
You could even imagine appliances such as refrigerators having some short term storage capacity, such as a bank of ultracapacitors, so that it can run for perhaps a few hours at a time without drawing energy from the grid or mains. With such a capacity the appliance could be programmed (or it may receive a signal or request from a power utility over the internet if allowed by the user) to run off the stored energy during grid peak-load times. Such a storage capacity could also spare the food in the freezer from defrosting during most short term blackouts, as an example of the value of this simple idea.
