Will this be a Smart year?

This will be a year of the smart grid, or perhaps make or break year, as experts put it.

But the immediate criteria of smart grid success will be perceived benefits from advanced metering (AMI) and phasor measurement units (PMUs)--devices that precisely measure variations in voltage and current permitting their synchronization in real time.

In the US and now in the UK, there is some amount of resistance to smart meters, largely over the cost. While they radically reduce meter reading costs for the utilities, their introduction has meant rising bills only for consumers.

For success, the Advanced Metering Infrastructure will have to start yielding lower energy costs. Smart meters will have to produce their full range of expected benefits, which can be said to include demand response (enabling customers to modify electricity usage in reaction to hourly price changes), faster and more efficient service (including automated reporting of emergencies, and greater system reliability (because utilities will be getting real-time feedback from every customer's meter). They will be seen as a disappointment, according to a grid expert, if all they produce is less expensive meter reading for utilities.

As thousands of PMUs are being deployed on transmission lines to report voltage deviations in real time to utilities, significantly greater system reliability should result. If we don't start seeing measurable improvements in system reliability soon, they too will be a disappointment.

In the longer run the smart grid should involve much more than just AMI and PMU: integration of two-way communications throughout distribution systems, a more renewable-friendly grid, power systems that in their totality are much more efficient, lower carbon emissions, etc.