[1] It is a concept that is used in an effort to improve the efficiency and reliability of the power system, pointing towards a more intelligent and interactive future for the energy industry.
[3] The goal of the Energy Flexibility Platform and Interface (EF-Pi) [4] approach is to decouple Smart Grid services from the customer appliances.
[6] The project participants included 11 utilities, two universities, and multiple technology companies to span five Pacific Northwest states: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
[9] AEP utilized Grid Command, a tool that was developed in partnership with Battelle in order to model much of the gridSMART circuit layout.
[10] The next steps for the next phase of gridSMART were identified to be upgrading current technologies in order to better manage supply, reduce costs, and minimize the number of customers affected by outages.
This has been proposed through the installation of smart meter technology, distribution automation circuit reconfiguration (DACR), and volt var optimization (VVO).
[11] During the project, eView was developed to assist customers in monitoring their electric use and costs as well as estimating current month usage to measure against their energy budget.
[11] eView< is an in-home device that communicates with the smart meter through wireless technology and informs the consumer of the price of electricity and how much was being used.