Boulder, CO is lighting up the nation’s first “Smart Grid”:

Boulder, Colo.: America’s First ‘Smart Grid City’

From the article:

“We like to think of Smart Grid as bringing the world of Thomas Edison together with the world of Bill Gates,” said Ray Gogel of Xcel Energy, a utility company involved in the system’s installation.

Xcel, along with several green high-tech companies, has invested $100 million to transform Boulder into a living laboratory.

“We’re doing something that the whole world is looking at right now,” Gogel said.

University of Colorado Chancellor G.P. “Bud” Peterson and his wife, Val, were the first to let Xcel transform their home. Xcel energy put solar panels on the house, gave them a new smart meter and a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle that literally plugs in to their house.

Also:

These high-tech gadgets make the Peterson’s home so efficient that they are not just using less power, sometimes they save so much power that their meter is essentially spinning backward. The excess power is stored in the house, charging the batteries in their car and supplying them with about two days’ worth of backup power.

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