When entering the word Smart Grid in an internet search engine nowadays you will get over nine million hits and from all the discussion forums, project initiatives and conferences on the theme it seems as if the Smart Grid hype has taken over the power industry like a storm.

However when did the Smart Grid hype start? Who invented it? And  why are so many people excited about it? Given the fact that there is no one single (world wide) accepted definition of what Smart Grid is, one can debate whether there is an inventor of the Smart Grid and whether Smart Grid actually exists.

The term Smart Grid has at least been around since 2005, when the article "Toward A Smart Grid", authored by S. Massoud Amin and Bruce F. Wollenberg appeared in the September/October issue of IEEE P&E Magazine. The term however had been used previously and may date as far back as 1998.

Today's power grid has evolved over a period of more than 120 years after Nikola Tesla's design for a power system was published in 1888. The system has been proven to be reliable enough to base our society upon. And what is amazing is that many of the implementation decisions that are used today were made for the first time using the limited emerging technology available 120 years ago. As I argued in previous articles I find this strange to say the least as I think that a modern (smart) grid requires a similar process as the one we embarked on 120 years ago and that should lead us to defining new rules, engineering practices and standardized solutions that fit the modern grid and its use.

Some people say that part of the reasoning for the Smart Grid hype is the fact that over the past 50 years electricity networks have not kept pace with modern challenges such as security threats, the urge to employ alternative generation sources and energy conservation goals. However one can argue whether these are real drivers because despite the fact that the power network is being publicly broadcasted, there have been very few attacks on the system.

Also in the case of renewable power, people have claimed that given power networks can take up to 30% renewables without any changes, and the discussion about energy conservation may have been sparked by Al Gore’s movie “an inconvenient truth”, but the debate about global warming and the effect the power system has on it, are far from over.

Please do not misunderstand me.

I am absolutely in favor of developing solutions as part of the current Smart Grid hype and I strongly believe that we need to build a more sustainable society using alternative and renewable resources to generate energy. I also embrace the fact that the Smart Grid hype has sparked interest in the power industry as a whole and that it attracts many new people into our power society. The question that I have asked myself recently however is:

What the real drivers towards Smart Grid are?

We as engineers love technology (that is why we are engineers, isn’t it?) and this is why we get excited about developing new technologies, just because we can. The fact that we now can develop new ideas, new concepts and invent new solutions has the whole engineering community vibrating and it has already sparked an explosion of new ideas and solutions.

The major driver however, if you ask me, for the Smart Grid hype is that governments, communities and companies are spending billions on Smart Grid technologies, as this allows for the hype to be turned into real solutions.

The danger of the latter is that the money is being spent on new gadgets and ideas without keeping the bigger picture in mind. As stated before one can argue (probably endlessly) about what that bigger picture should be and whether the arguments used are real and valid.

I think however, that we should not lose time or energy in debating about who is more right or wrong.

I therefore suggest that we think about our future and that of the generations to come and use the current hype to grow our economy, create new jobs, look for sustainable and creative solutions, stimulate energy conservation and develop new engineering practices and many other items that can help to secure our future.

I think however that we should not forget to have fun while doing all that!