Overheard: Is there a smart grid in the house?

Results from a year-long study on high-tech electricity meters found smart grid technology performed as intended, saving consumers about 10 percent on their bills while easing strain on the power grid. Martin LaMonica, GridWise trial finds ‘smart grids’ cut electricity bills

Homeowners in the study were equipped with a gateway device that used an existing broadband Internet connection to receive pricing information from the utility, which was transmitted wirelessly to a smart thermostat and a smart meter. The thermostat had an LED display to indicate when the utility was automatically controlling appliances.

Consumers had the ability to preset certain conditions. They could manually override those settings and go online and see how prices fluctuated in real time.

IBM was the systems integrator in the project to provide the back-end software that communicated information between utilities and consumers.