Idaho Environmental Forum #165

Smart Grid: Is this the Silver Bullet?

SPEAKERS
Dr. John Gardner, Associate Vice President for Energy Research, Policy and Campus Sustainability, Boise State University

Dave Angell, Manager of Delivery Planning, Idaho Power

Program Description
All of a sudden, it's all about "Smart Grid."  In a nutshell a smart grid delivers electricity from suppliers to consumers using digital technology to save energy, reduce cost, and increase reliability.  Many are touting it as a key strategy in the quest for energy independence and a step toward easing global warming.  The union of information technology with power distribution is, indeed, a powerful concept.  It has the potential for revolutionizing not only power transmission and distribution but power generation and power consumption as well.

In the past six months, the buzz around the so-called smart grid has reached a crescendo. Yet, while everyone seems to be talking about it, few people are able to explain exactly what it is. One of the reasons is that the smart grid is more of a concept than it is an actual engineering design. In this talk, we will do our best to break past the greenspeak and provide some practical insight into what smart grid means and what gains it could bring to Idaho and beyond.