I was hit by the remnants of Hurricane Ike as he strolled up to visit Ohio...the power was out for 10 days at my houe, and longer in other areas.

The local power company has been charging $20 per month for "Line Maintenance" for years, yet discontinued the act of trimming trees around the lines 17 years prior to Ike's visit. There was over a million people without power for days.

My point is this...most power companies already charge for "line Maintenance" yet don't perform the service that is paid for on a monthly basis. If they were to just maintain the lines, as promised, perhaps the "grid" would do what it's supposed to do.

But maybe this is the reason for some government loans and such that way something has to get done lest they lose their government money.

Its called a "Smart Grid"
 

I think that a "Smart Grid" is what the OP was reaching for. Thats the only real upgrade that an electrical grid has available, other than piecemeal added transmission lines (or upgrades so existing lines can carry more...)

My personal bias up front - I used to work for an electric company before I was deployed to Iraq (I'm posting from an MWR computer =) I hope to get a job at that company when I get back (I was on contract in the engineering department...)

A smart grid is one where all the transformers, sub stations, and distribution points down to the meter on a building are all network-communicating devices. Its like having a little network card in your electric meter (with a little backup battery in case power is lost), that emails the company your electric usage every month - the technology for this already exists (aka internet over power lines) and is what most pundits mean when they talk about upgrading the electrical grid. Presumably, the electric meters themselves would not be accessible from the internet (see the section on hacking below =) ...but they could be built as internet devices.

"benefits" - Ease of monitoring individual customers, disconnecting and reconnecting service (you could be shut off or turned on by the call center - it wouldnt take a visit from a guy with a van). Ease of monitoring where service is and isnt (if the power co saw that an entire block had no power, it could send a crew there before someone even calls.
example2 - if power is restored to a block, and then is lost again (another tree goes down, this happened to me a few times during the aforementioned Ohio hurricane) the power company could monitor this in almost real time and find problems more quickly from the office - as opposed to having crews of linemen drive down the street looking for the blown transformer.
having a smart meter also allows the company to bill you more or less based on the time of day you use power. The smart meter would have a real-time clock in it, and be able to compute/display the power used at different times of day. This is why people that like electric cars like smart grids - you put your car on a timer to charge at night, when the power co. charges less. - they cant do that (right now) with conventional electric meters. I think that some large businesses/buildings have these though.

drawbacks- the electric grid is now a hackable network, and someone with access can turn off power to houses/businesses as they wish. As the computer security saying goes - if you dont have physical control of a computer - its not yours anymore. There'd be teething problems and administrative errors ("sorry, we meant to turn off your neighbors power...")
The other drawback would be expense. I dont know how much a conventional electric meter is but I'd put the new smart meter at least 2x the cost of a conventional one. Purely a guess.
the money required to touch every building/substation would be a lot...this system would have to be phased in over time. Sorry I can't offer any cost numbers.
There is probably a privacy argument there also - how much power you use at what time...but I can't find a reason why someone's power consumption records would be subpoena'd...(I'm sure some of the black helicopter lovers on here could =)...but they could be.

Personally, I'm not in favor of a smart grid - this country is just too big and I'm too afraid of hackers/errors. If the made the system such that you had to visit the physical meter to turn off service - ok - I'll take that hit and save by doing my laundry at night.

Sorry for the long post, if you google smart grid, I'm sure that you'll find much more than what I have to say. Let the debate continue.

-SSGt John

Interesting. I had heard the term smart grid but didn't know what it meant. It sounds like something that probably will be phased in gradually over time.

I've been reading a book called Reefer Madness that told about a person who used a generator to power his indoor pot growing operation specifically so that his power consumption couldn't arouse suspicion.

Thanks for being in Iraq. I've been there twice myself.

You make it possible. Thank you for your service.

hey John, thanks for the info. Good luck over there, come back in one piece. I think I might say for all of us that we're touched that you spend some of your limited computer time here on shopforum. ;)