The easiest method of increasing energy efficiency is to cut demand, also known as "negawatts" (per Armory Lovins). New smart grid products will increase reliability by reducing human input and automating the communications between utilities and customers.

The term smart grid may have once been focused on utility companies or large corporate customers. However as technology improves, individual customers are further being drawn into energy monitoring.

Energy management company Comverge recently released the Apollo Demand Response Management System, which enhances smart grid energy management by focusing on moment by moment performance.

Demand response systems can reduce peak demand even when employed minimally. Improving grid reliability by reducing congestion can help to stabilize energy prices in a year when costs are expected to increase nearly 10%.

The Apollo Platform is a web-based application that will manage both commercial and residential demand management resources, which now include new in-home energy monitoring devices and improved communication with utility companies, allowing for better scalability. Comverge announced that Pepco Holdings, which serves nearly 2 million customers in North Carolina will use Apollo as part of its residential demand-reduction program.

Commercial buildings have similarly used software from companies such as Echelon for energy management

Apollo will also direct load control and manage price response so that consumers can limit their power consumption when it is most expensive and also as part of the goal to eliminate brown outs or power outages.

Apollo works with intelligent devices such as SuperStats, Comverge’s intelligent thermostat that comply with the Zigbee SmartEnergy standard. These devices enable customers to participate in or opt-out of load shedding or in some cases even generate energy on-site to supply power to the grid.

My first encounter with a poor demand response system was when I was just above the LaGuardia airport in an A310 as the Northeast Blackout of 2003 occurred. Restaurants were offering food to passers-by, flares marked empty streets and in neighborhoods where my parents lived, hot water was days away. A smarter grid could have avoided the power failure that affected an estimated 55 million people.

Apollo addresses the growing need for demand response solutions that the Obama administration has identified as part of its focus on smart grid technology investment. The software also addresses goals outlined in the recently proposed smart grid policy statement from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which focuses on grid reliability and cybersecurity.

Our current energy grid is inadequate for the electric power demands, and our system of transporting and storing energy is antiquated and far from peak efficiency. Technologies such as Comverge's Apollo add a new level of demand response capability needed to meet future energy requirements.