Door opens on smart grid bids | Australian IT

Door opens on smart grid bids

Stuart Kennedy | October 29, 2009

THE Rudd government has opened the bidding on who will build the first electricity smart grid.

Smart grids, which combine advanced metering and networking technology, are seen as the future of national power management as well as helping households save on power bills.

The demonstration smart grid project will be built in conjunction with the energy sector and is expected to cost up to $200 million, of which the government will contribute up to $100m.

Environment Minister Peter Garrett said that if smart grid applications were adopted across the country they had the potential to lower carbon emissions by at least 3.5 mega-tonnes per year.

“Smart grids provide greater ability to incorporate and distribute renewable energy, save money through cutting-edge ‘self-healing’ technologies, and reduced demand, and empower consumers to manage their energy use,” he said…

via Door opens on smart grid bids | Australian IT.

It is really good to see that someone in the Government – Peter Garrett – understands the Smart Grid and can see its potential for sustainable energy systems. The Smart Grid is regularly compared to the internet. It is only at a very early stage in its development, like the early internet when it consisted of little more than dial-up modem access to on-line bulletin boards – perhaps it hasn’t even reached that level of sophistication yet. The Smart Grid will be the most important thing that will transform energy systems because it will build up monitoring and control information systems for the use of energy. You can not improve on something that you do not know about nor understand. The new energy information systems will quickly identify gaps in capability and technology and that will drive R&D to fill those gaps. That is why it will have a wide-ranging impact that we can not possibly predict now. There will almost certainly be a tremendous potential for industrial development related to the Smart Grid and energy systems, similar to what happened in the computing industry over the last few decades. This is the key technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Renewable energy sources and energy efficiency will depend on the Smart Grid. Once this is apparent through out the energy industry, we will see real action on climate change.