Smart Grid

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Comment by Laura Schewel on March 12, 2009 at 10:12am

Here is a presentation from a February meeting about getting ready for plug-in vehicles using the Smart Grid as an enabler. I work for Rocky Mountain Institute, a non-profit interested in using Portland Oregon as a case study for how to get ready, and presented this to the group in Portland. PortlandMeetingPreso_RMI.pdf

Comment by Robert Beaulaurier on March 5, 2009 at 12:33pm

Smart grids are like the PC was in the early 80s. It is interesting that a search engine company was one of the first to create software for smart meters. Perhaps they know people are doing some searches on SM.

I have done utilitiy billing and metering research for years and the low cost and abundant resources of the Northwest have worked against adoption of a lot of technologies and time of use programs in the past.

"Peak oil" means that electricity demand is going to skyrocket in the next few decades and electricity will be more expensive. Smart meters will become more important as the pain of not paying attention to electricity in the future will be more like that first cell phone bill after your first experience with "roaming charges."

The costs of waiting far exceed the costs of implementing smart meters too early.

Comment by Dan Woodward on February 11, 2009 at 5:18pm

With the abundance of rich energy generation resources coupled with the technology industry in the PacNW, Oregon should be at the epicenter of intelligent power management. It seems as if to date however the businesses focusing on this have mainly been the large corporations (GE, IBM, etc.). Have the small entrepreneurs left this pond altogether?