smart meter

After an aggressive campaign of fitting roughly 85% of Italy's homes with innovative smart meters, the country's main utility, Enel (BIT:ENEL), is saving up to $750 million per year and cutting consumer costs dramatically.

A Brief History and How Smart Meters Work:

Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) not only wants to secure a chunk of the emerging smart grid market, it wants to own all of it.

North Carolina startup PlotWatt has a motto; “you can’t manage what you don’t measure”.

The smart grid presents a unique opportunity for businesses and consumers alike to manage energy usage and cut costs, among other benefits. However, while energy demand might be conserved, households could face hidden privacy costs.

With the help of IBM (NYSE:IBM) and Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO), Amsterdam is aiming to be Europe's first "smart city."

The British government has issued a white paper--the Low Carbon Transition Plan--which will create an energy revolution in the UK. 

The Low Carbon Transition Plan is an extremely ambitious scheme, which aims to cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions by 34% within 11 years.  By 2050, the government hopes to reduce its emissions by 80%.

The race to capture a niche in the blossoming smart grid market is heating up every day.

Oncor has become the first utility company to request funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for the development of its smart grid projects.

Microsoft is jumping into the energy efficiency and smart grid game.  The company announced today it will launch Hohm, a free online application designed to show consumers how to use their energy more efficiently.

The smart meter concept creates more efficient electricity use, could it do the same for automobile transportation?