Smart Turkey?

[Commentary] Why focus on the Smart Grid in the energy section of the national broadband plan? We have a climate crisis on our hands, and broadband and IT need to be part of the solution. In fact, smart electric grids, smart homes, and smart buildings -- sometimes collectively called the smart grid -- are the greatest opportunity for broadband and IT to reduce carbon emissions. One study recently concluded that smart grids, homes, and buildings could reduce over 800 million tons of annual carbon emissions by 2020. That's the equivalent of taking more than 100 million gasoline-fueled cars off the road. The responses to the public notice on Smart Grid issues have also made it clear that there are two issues that we need to address in a comprehensive plan to Congress. First, it's clear from the record that our electrical system-really a collection of systems-will require greater data connectivity across the entire grid, from generation to transmission to distribution to the meter, and within the home and building. As we have more distributed generation, plug-in electric vehicles, and retail prices that better reflect costs, we'll need to modernize the grid, with greater communications and IT throughout. Second, a lot of the expected benefits of the Smart Grid are really benefits we'll gain from smarter homes and smarter buildings. Consumers and building owners will be expected to interact with the grid in new ways, including the "Prius Effect", which refers to the way Toyota Prius drivers responded to the prominent display on the car's dashboard of real-time fuel economy by changing their driving behavior to get even better mileage. Similarly, exposure to better energy consumption information can help encourage energy savings behavior. But a lot of the benefits will be the automation of home or building systems to manage energy better - you won't have to lift a finger!