The connections between advanced energy technologies and IT have never been more important.  Most of the attention today is focused on generating of new sources of energy or reducing consumption.  Both are important, but ignore the critical third element: transmission.  From Fortune Magazine:

The electric industry has been talking for decades about bringing the nation’s antiquated, inefficient, glitch-prone energy grid into the Computer Age. Now, with energy demand rising twice as fast as supply, it’s finally happening, thanks to a rare alignment of interests - government, business, consumer, and environmental.

Government and industry studies estimate that a modern digital energy grid could trim the country’s power usage by 10%, reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25%, and eliminate the need for $80 billion in new power plants. “It’s not a question of whether such a grid can be built,” says Rick Nicholson, an energy analyst at the market research firm IDC, “but when.”

Get the rest of the story here.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 5:45 am and is filed under Policy, Information and Communications Tech, Strategy, Innovation, Sustainability, Advanced Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.