President Obama had announced in October 2009 about investing $3.4 billion in government grants to be given to companies in the United States to improve the then existing grid network of the country. Since money is now being spent on the smart grid the question here is how important it is going to be for renewable energy. The project has the ability to create a positive impact on the environment with a significant amount of energy coming from renewable resources such as solar and wind energy.
Today renewable energy holds the key to cutting down the amount of pollutants released in the atmosphere due to burning of fossil fuels. The existing energy grid is not able to able to handle larger amount of electricity which is created by renewable energy sources. However with the announcement of President Obama the tables have completely turned as of present.
The smart grid will be able to handle the conventional and renewable energy and it will intelligently distribute energy from places which have excess power to places which experience acute shortage of power.
The smart grid will now handle another aspect of producing energy which has long been available to only those people who live in rural areas or live off grid. Hence when a large section of the electricity needs comes through renewable resources it encourages more and more people to go back to the grid. It encourages people to make their own electricity and in case they have excess electricity then they can sell it back to the power companies.
In the next ten years, the scenario about producing and maintaining the distribution of electricity will change completely. Hence instead of procuring electricity from nuclear and coal plants that release a lot of pollution, everyone will be talking about solar, wind, hydroelectric and geothermal plants that can produce renewable and clean energy.