Hurricane Irene highlights need for smarter grid

Hurricane Irene wasn't exactly the raging monster that some forecasters expected, but it has left millions of people across a whole bunch of communities in the dark, and potentially without power for days, and even weeks, at a time. The outages due to major storms like Irene could likely be far shorter, and could be easier and cheaper to fix after the next-generation of smart grid technology is installed. ComEd has said publicly that if smart grid technology had been in place for previous storms this summer, the impact of those storms would have been minimized. Smart grid tech can allow utilities to know when specific customers are without power without the customer having to call the utility, and digital automation tech can also reroute power to customers in need.