Most European electrical professionals find it rather surprising that given the US grid has a poor outage performance its first priority has not been to prioritise smart grid investment towards automating demand response, which would make a much bigger impact on improving robustness. Smart meters appear to have hogged stimulus and other investment funds. Although they will improve energy efficiency and help balance demand, apart from remote billing they have limited capability until the full infrastructure is in place, operating on a common communication protocol. The European perspective on the US approach to the implementation of smart grid and particularly smart meters is that there is far too much concern about consumers, what they want and how much they are prepared to pay. If smart grid is to become a key enabler of a worldwide low-carbon economy then all of the stakeholders will have to contribute in order to benefit. The Europeans have reluctantly accepted […]