Following up on the introductory post on the Smart Grid, I wanted to assemble a group of videos that would serve as a good introduction to the Smart Grid. It turns out that there is already a very good collection out there: The 10 Smart Grid Videos Worth Watching.

Here a couple of thought after viewing those videos:

1. Siemens is the only one who uses the plural ‘Smart Grids’. Their vision is that of numerous small grids that are interconnected and work to improve the efficiency of the entire electricity infrastructure. It was surprising the Siemens was prominently pushing the vision of driverless cars.
2. The GE video introduced me to the concept of ‘brownout’. Most people are familiar with the term ‘blackout’ but I was surprised that I had never come across ‘brownout’ before watching this video.
3. As expected CISCO is all about networking. CISCO’s video was pushing their familiar pitch for standardizing over IP protocols for the entire grid. According to this video, there are over 360 proprietary protocols used in the electric industry. That number does not surprise me. The fight over protocol standardization will be the most interesting political fights to watch in the development of the Smart Grid.
4. We have all heard about the upcoming glut of all electric cars. While it is still anyone’s guess as to whether they become a success, there is an interesting dual use for these cars that many people might not be aware of. The vision is to have cars serve as back-up storage of electricity and in times of high demand, the cars would supply the energy to the grid. The cars would not only consume but also contribute to the grid. Both the Siemens video and CISCO video highlight this feature.
5. The EPRI has a video explaining the benefits of a smart grid control center ( a ‘virtual power plant’) that would be able to not only control the main sub-station but also control customer’s devices. This vision is what is both exciting and scary about the Smart Grid. From a privacy perspective, would consumers want a Big Brother automatically turning their devices on and off? Would it be better than a complete black-out? What about the security implications? If the power company can get in your home network and manipulate your appliances, what guarantees can we have that we can keep the hackers out?
6. While all the above videos are mostly marketing videos showing their respective company’s vision of the Smart Grid, American Electric Power (AEP) has a video of an actual pilot project.This project was conducted with GE smart meters, Silver Spring’s network and AEP as the utility company.
7. For an international perspective, the Korean Electric Power company’s video is a good introduction. One surprising fact is that Korea seems to have a lot more Tidal power generation projects than US or Europe.
8. Watch the Altair Nano video to get a good overview of micro-grids and the importance of storage technologies for micro-grid.

After watching all these videos, you should have a good overview of the vision for the Smart Grid.