"The light is on," a friend of mine says, whenever he meets people living consciously. And the light is on for more and more people as we tap into the growing potential for a sentient society. One that will create space for us to create ourselves, allow us to build community, and perhaps value what we can be over what we can do.

Of course creating a better world will take work, (play) and along the way we're going to need clean, efficient and reliable electricity to keep those other lights on. We know we need renewable energy sources, but worries of reliability and distribution seem to be stemming the flow of resources for the changeover.

Enter smart grids. Like the Internet for energy, smart grid technology would allow P2P energy sharing by using advanced metering to determine where energy is available and where it is needed. Generation would be distributed, between many different sources, and storage would be localized as well.

This means instead of the current one way flow of power from plant to user, everyone's house, business, and car would be it's own generator and storer of energy, and could be connected to the grid at the most optimal time for charging or transmission.

Smart appliances would know when to turn on or off, or put themselves into hibernation. Your plug in electric car would charge at night when prices would be lowest. With smart metering, the market would flow in real-time, allowing prices to fluctuate with supply and demand. You could program your car to wait for that time of night when wind generators, for example, are producing the most power.

At work, you could plug in again, but now your car would be the battery, and if you had more energy than you needed, you could sell it back to the grid for a premium during the day's peak demand. You also might set your air conditioner to let the temperature go up a few degrees if prices were high or the system was getting overloaded.

Some appliances are already being built with this technology, such as washing machines that will cycle slower at times of heavy load. Refrigerators are among the machines still in testing stages.

Your energy bill would be a lot lower, and the whole system would be more efficient. Losses from distribution would be cut. "Waste" energy, generated at off-peak times could be captured and used. If you are microgenerating with a PV array or small source of your own, none of that would be wasted either.

Taking this a step further is the concept of the microgrid, which could link communities together in their own energy district, with one connection to the main grid. Normally, all needs would be met within the communities. If not, power can be uploaded from the grid. If the larger grid fails, the district can separate and isolate itself from the disturbance until the disruption is corrected.

Co-generation is also a big part of the plan, and recouping "waste," heat from fossil fuel plants increases the amount of generated energy being used from 30-40 percent to 65-97 percent. Using that heat on neighboring buildings, or central heating units for multiple homes works especially well in small-scale generation.

The proliferation of renewable energy, both large and small scale is leaving energy companies scrambling to handle the intermittent flow of energy. With the smart grid, new sources of power could come online easily and seamlessly enter the system.

Reliability would be assured, even with intermittent power from renewable sources. Billions of dollars are lost to industry each year from minor disruptions in power. In the digital age, even a fraction of a second of power disruption can cause huge disruptions. With an energy web, businesses would be protected from these potential blows, and wouldn't need to maintain expensive back-up generation systems.

Nanotechnology breakthroughs are also opening the way for "quantum wires," carbon nano-tubes 1/6th the weight of today's copper wires. Less energy would be lost through them, and trees couldn't easily take them down in a storm. This will be helpful in supplying grids with power generated in mountains, deserts or outside of cities.

This resilient grid would be self-monitoring, and self-healing. By analyzing it's weaknesses, in the event of a real incident, such as a tree falling, it will already have in place plans to move energy around the damaged section and keep the flow going. This will be increasingly important considering the coming likelihood of storms and unpredictable weather.

Finally, jobs in this industry will take off once utilities and consumers fully commit to the change. Here in the bay PG&E is retrofitting existing meters, but has not yet committed to the technology necessary to fully implement the smart grid. As for the Vehicle 2 Grid car, that's PG&E's own idea, although they peg it at 5 or 6 years out for a possibility.

The cost of changing over the infrastructure is something utilities have found daunting, especially when most are required to prove that changing over will save enough money to make the investment in new technology worthwhile. However t he grid needs updating anyway, the forecast from Harbor Research being that at least 60% of it will have to be updated in the next 10-15 years.

A study from PNNL said smart grids could eliminate $46bn to $117 bn of costs associated with buliding new power plants and lines in the next 20 years. A RAND corporation study projected a $57bn in savings over that same time period with the use of smart grids to prevent power disruptions. FERC estimates $14 - $26 bn to cover the costs of smart grid installation nationwide.

The best thing people can do at this point is see what kinds of microgeneration are best for you and your community; and keep urging lawmakers to take advantage of the technologies we already have to keep moving toward a more sustainable world.

Keep the light on!