The island nation of Malta, halfway between the coasts of Sicily and North Africa, will soon be the first smart grid island with IBM on the job with the utilities. Using 250,000 smart meters that will enable the national utilities and their customers to better manage energy and water use, the network is expected to be completed by 2012.
Malta is tiny, with less than 400,000 people but the experiment will show if smart grid will be accepted. When operational the network will allow the electric and water utilities to monitor remotely and manage in real time. Users can track energy use and adjust it to the time when the pricing is low. Meanwhile, Xcel Energy is working on its vision to make Boulder, Colo. the first fully integrated Smart Grid City in the US.
Is the smart grid an effective option or a costly one? While the need for optimizing energy usage cannot be denied, how much will implementation cost? With all the sensors, meters, routers and switches to be incorporated at many levels, can someone tell us how feasible this is for a developing nation? Has a cost benefit study been done?
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