You’ve heard a lot of talk about the deployment of the Smart Grid. Most of the initial smart grid deployments are focused on the deployment of smart meters that enable utilities to gather usage information in near real time — or what they call Automated Meter Infrastructure (AMI). The use of AMI provides a number of benefits, including more accurate billing and improved service, easier provisioning (turning power on or off to a customer), accessibility of use data by customers, and use of time of day or real time rates.
The smart grid also opens up the potential for a series of new applications including the use of more distributed power and micro-grids that will result in improved grid resiliency. For commercial buildings, we should expect that the smart grid will provide a series of solutions that are loosely called “Building to Grid” or B2G. In short, these are solutions that will better balance commercial building loads with the capacity of the grid. It is important to understand what is coming so that you can design to accommodate systems that are B2G-ready.