Interesting Piece on Smart Grid

The gist of so-called "smart grid" technologies is that it is a way of delivering electricity from power generation companies to consumers using a sort of digital technology to regulate better the way the electricity is delivered. It's a kind of more intelligent, self-regulating way of delivering power. The power deliverer and the power receiver are each equipped with a "smart meter" that gives more information, such as how much electricity is being drawn and how much electricity each appliance draws.

Shidan Gouran has a recent article at Smart-Grid.tmcnet.com in which he expresses some reservations about smart grid technology.

Grid authorization, authentication and accounting mechanisms, together with a security infrastructure, would be needed to ensure a device’s proper identity, the networks integrity and proper accountability. The accounting process would also have to include sophisticated and decentralized clearing-house services so consumers could charge their PEVs with roaming utilities. Of course all these requirements would extend to every mobile/portable electric device including laptops and other consumer electronics. Turning power consumption into an individualized experience should, in my opinion, be an important goal of the Smart Grid.

The idea, basically, is that smart grid is a generally good idea, but it will call for an increasingly Byzantine communications network in order to be effective. The article isn't entirely negative, however, and it sends by saying, "the Smart Grid will look very similar to the most sophisticated IP-based networks of the communications industry," which, despite some snags, has worked out fairly well for the world.