Japan wants to make the smart grid even more like the Internet

By Jesse Berst

We've long made comparisons between the Internet and the smart grid. Now a Japanese consortium is working to develop large-scale grids that handle power like the Internet handles data.

The current vision of the smart grid is long on sensors, monitors and meters that record where power is flowing. But it is short on devices that control that power flow. The Digital Grid Consortium hopes to change this with the electric power equivalents of the "routers" and "service providers" that manage the flow of Internet data. Someday, as this ComputerWorld article explains, they hope to manage power packets the way the Internet manages data packets.

It's a brilliant concept and one that should have gotten more research attention earlier. Kudos to the Japanese for tackling it now. (Use the Comment form below if you know of similar efforts elsewhere in the world.)

Japan has a "gold-plated" electromechanical grid that has far fewer reliability issues than its American counterpart. Thus, for the first years of the smart grid revolution, Japan saw little reason to participate.

But that is now changing rapidly. For one thing, the tsunami-related reactor failures has made the island nation realize it will  have to rely more heavily on variable renewables-- and that requires a smart grid. For another, Japan has recognized that smart grid can be its next great export industry.

Jesse Berst is the founder and chief analyst of Smart Grid News.com. He consults to smart grid companies seeking market entry advice and M&A advisory. A frequent keynoter at industry events in the US and abroad, he also serves on the Advisory Council of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Energy & Environment directorate.

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