Energy Conservation and Environmental Impact With advanced smart grid communication, utility companies can help us communicate better with our homes, improve efficiency, reduce power outages, stop waste, get accurate bill estimates, get new pricing plans, and adapt to new technology. The smart grid’s advanced technology maximizes efficiency and production and is compatible with adopting renewable energy options like wind and solar.Along with smart grids and meters came brand new pricing programs that allow consumers to save money or receive bill credits when they cut back on electricity during times when electricity is high in demand.This eliminates estimated bills so that consumers aren’t paying for more electricity than they used. With the smart grid, our bills are measured by the system in real-time.Plus, utility companies can better reduce waste so there is a more efficient distribution of electricity to all communities. Since the smart grid provides constant feedback on how we are using our electricity, we can identify where we are overusing and cut back to stop unnecessary waste.This way, prevention measures are taken right away to address outages quickly. The two-way communication of the smart grid allows utility companies to predict future power outages before they happen.Smart grid communication helps energy companies resolve issues that cause power outages and blackouts faster.Thanks to the two-way communication between smart grids and meters, information on how we use electricity gets sent to the utility company and back to us so that we’re aware of how much energy we use.Here are some of the ways the smart grid changes the game. We can now feel at ease that our utility companies are able to navigate to the source of a power outage to fix it. Our new, up-to-date electricity system has reshaped the way we live. The smart grid shares how consumers use electricity.The smart grid increases the accuracy of future power outage predictions.Traditional electricity grids lacked communication.Now, our homes and businesses can report back to utility companies to inform them of issues that may indicate future power outages. With the smart grid, we get two-way communication between utility companies and our homes and businesses. It was also impossible to determine if there would be any blackouts to watch out for. Consumers also didn’t get feedback on how they were utilizing their electricity, which made it hard to cut back their energy use. We were only receiving electricity, and no information was being sent back to the utility company on whether we received it or how we were using it. Like the smart grid, the old electric grid powered our homes through the electricity that flowed through its wires, but it stopped there. Though the traditional grid was an engineering breakthrough, it needed advancements to keep up with modern life. It was developed in the 1890s and evolved with technology.The smart grid is a modern system of wires, meters, and transformers.Here is a quick video explaining the smart grid in detail! Today, the modern smart grid contains over nine thousand electricity generating units, has over one million megawatts of generating capacity, and is connected to more than three hundred thousand transmission lines. The electricity grid is older than you might have thought – it was developed in the 1890s and evolved along with our ever-changing technology. We connect ourselves to the smart grid when we plug in our devices and click on the light switch. The smart grid is the modern system of wires, meters, and transformers that work together to power our homes and businesses. If you’re interested in gaining knowledge on how our modern electrical grid works to enhance the lives of millions of families in our communities, you’ve come to the right place. We don’t see it, but we interact with it daily! It’s hard to imagine life without it – it powers our homes, allows us to better manage our electricity usage, and avoids inconvenient power outages.
#Smart grids series#
This blog is part of a series from Elevate’s Community Resources team to make climate topics easy to understand and implement in your community!