Smart grid cuts electricity demand 20%

Smart grid has a lot of hype to live up to, and large-scale roll-out hit some early roadblocks, but here is a recent promising result.

A smart grid pilot project in Fayetteville, N.C., has resulted in an initial 20 percent decline in average electricity consumption, according Consert, a Raleigh, N.C. technology company.

Those numbers are based on the first month of the project, a joint effort between Consert and I.B.M. that installed energy management systems for 100 residential and business customers of the Fayetteville Public Works Commission, the local utility.

A brief news scan informed me that the Boulder smart grid project, which I had lost track of after it hit some early customer opposition, is apparently up and running. And obviously stimulus dollars are hard at work replicating this early success elsewhere.

P.S. In other obsolete news, Steve Chu makes his case for smart grid.