Power, and pitfalls, of an electrical smart grid

President Obama has made the smart grid a major plank of his "rebuilding America" plan, viewing it as a way not only to eliminate blackouts and power failures, but also to create jobs and cut greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming. A smart grid -- a digital network enabling utilities, consumers and alternative sources of renewable energy to "talk" to one another instantaneously -- could steer electricity to where it is needed most. In the economic stimulus act that the president signed in February, Congress allocated $4.5 billion for smart grid investments, a thin slice of the $38.7 billion that the package funneled to the Department of Energy. But is it enough? "We are making a down payment," said Matt Rogers, a senior advisor to Energy Secretary Steven Chu. The down payment will fund a set of pilot projects to demonstrate the viability of the smart grid and to show that it can deliver energy on a large scale, Rogers said. Another goal: driving electrical utilities to make long-term investments in smart-grid technologies. The Electric Power Research Institute, a utility industry think tank, has estimated the cost of building a smart grid at a staggering $165 billion -- about $8 billion a year for two decades. And one of the biggest challenges in rolling out a smart grid, energy experts say, is getting hundreds of industries, from power generators to appliance and auto manufacturers, to agree on a set of standards -- some already developed, many not ready yet.