Nick Sinai's Electric Bill and How Broadband Can Help

Sinai just received his first summertime DC electric bill and is suffering some sticker shock. But he allows observes that the bill is: 1) confusing, 2) delivered too late for him to do anything about it, and 3) missing helpful hints about how to change his consumption in the future. He writes, "Real-time information about prices and usage is important—studies have shown that just providing information about energy consumption in real-time can change behavior enough to generate a 10% savings on your electricity bill. The Smart Grid holds the promise to make this a reality." There are many different approaches to building the communications networks that are an essential part of the Smart Grid. There are many different applications -- Smart Meters being just one -- that have different bandwidth and latency requirements, and there is no silver bullet. Commercial wireless networks will play a role, but there are also private licensed and unlicensed approaches that have their place too. But the nation will collectively miss the benefit of the Smart Grid if we can't get information to the consumers so they can act on it.