Earlier this month Energy Secretary Chu announced that DOE was making $100 million in grants to support job training for work in the smart grid, with another $95 million to come from participating educational institutions, utilities, and manufacturers. The various programs supported by the grants are expected to produce 30,000 new trainees for smart grid work.
The ordinarily excellent Katie Fehrenbacher of Earth2Tech comments that “demand response devices are [already] shedding peak power in homes and businesses,” as “millions of two-way communicating, digital smart meters have been deployed.” If such load shedding in fact is already happening I haven't heard about it.
Does somebody know something I don't know?
Separately, Secretary Chu announced a series of partnerships and initiatives with other countries in the Western Hemisphere under the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas. Projects include efforts to advanced electricity interconnections in the Caribbean , and creation of at Energy Innovation Center at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
