Why the US Needs Smart Grids - and Soon

Just this summer, for example, a transformer fire knocked out the electricity across much of Manhattan, New York. When a single blackout can cost businesses tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in downtime, the scale of a disaster like this is enormous.

The worst is yet to come. As the average temperature rises year on year, and heatwaves become more common, the electrical load goes up and more pressure is heaped continually on infrastructure. Hurricanes and storms are getting more common, too, increasing the risk of power lines getting knocked out or whole nodes in the network being disrupted.

And then there’s the extra pressure of managing electricity availability from thousands of small providers using solar, hydro and wind. These help to increase the spread of renewable, sustainable sources, but they can also be erratic producers of energy, making supply more volatile. A least, without the right technology to manage it.

The bottom line is that the US National Grid is no longer fit for purpose. It was designed to meet the far more modest needs of the time, to cope with less dramatic weather, and to handle electricity from a smaller number of predictable sources. What’s more, the costs of bringing it up to scratch are huge - and the can is constantly getting kicked down the road. Clearly, we’ll need true innovation to make it resilient, cost-efficient and reliable.

This is why many companies and individuals in the US are now pushing for smart grids to be adopted widely.

Smart grids are electricity networks that use digital and IoT technology to supply electricity to consumers. It does this through two-way communication between the provider and end user via smart, IoT-enabled meters that monitor usage. This system enhances energy supply analysis and consumption, and ultimately reliability and costs, all along the supply chain. 

When you scale this up to business clients such as office buildings, manufacturing facilities, retail outlets, hospitals and universities, especially those with multiple locations, the benefits of smart grids are magnified. The grid system tracks electricity consumption and cross-references this with current costs, automatically bringing down consumption where possible, during periods of high demand.

This is just one of many approaches used to ease pressure on the grid and ensure consistent supply. What’s more, change will take time. Smart grids will certainly help, but it’s also vital to ensure that you have a comprehensive backup solution in place to protect your access to key utilities, no matter what happens to the grid.

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