How smart can the grid get?

Utilities and energy companies are flocking to roll out pilot projects for a smarter electric grid, taking advantage of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money. The idea is to deliver energy more efficiently and cut back on fossil-fuel use.

Great idea … but just how smart should a power grid get? That’s a question raised when you pair the reports about potential electric-grid investments with reports about potential electric-grid intrusions.

“You hear some people say, ‘At last I can have a programmable thermostat,’” said Stewart Baker, a former assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security. “I almost expect them to add, ‘… and someone from Nigeria can program it for me.’”

Baker, who now specializes in technology and security issues at the law firm Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, isn’t opposed to smart-grid technology per se. “We have only begun to see the most obvious ways in which a smarter grid would help us,” he said. He’s just worried that security concerns might get brushed aside in the rush to computerize the country’s antiquated electric distribution systems.

The discussions over the electric grid’s future touch on a tangle of top issues – not just national security, but energy, economics, the environment and engineering as well.

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