Boulder residents like smart grid

From an article posted on SmartMeters.com:

Boulder, Colorado has long had a reputation for appreciating the natural environment. Bikes outnumber cars in this city of about 100,000 and biking and hiking trails, open spaces and parks take up a significant portion of the beautiful city.

Boulder's respect for the environment has taken a technological leap in 2008 as it began the transformation into America's first Smart Grid City. Before long, 50,000 Boulder homes will be fitted with the very latest in smart meter technology that supports solar power generation, plug-in hybrid cars, and automated heating, cooling and lighting systems. The smart meter reports the level of energy used at any point in time and how much that energy costs in both monetary and environmental terms.

"We like to think of Smart Grid as bringing the world of Thomas Edison together with the world of Bill Gates," said Ray Gogel of Xcel Energy, the utility company behind the effort in Boulder. Xcel has partnered with several other green high-tech companies to invest $100 million in the project that will make Boulder a guinea pig for the rest of the country. "We're doing something that the whole world is
looking at right now," added Gogel.

G.P. "Bud" Peterson, Chancellor at the University of Colorado, and his wife, Val, were the first Boulder residents to allow Xcel to transform their home into a smart home. Xcel installed solar panels on the house, furnished them with a plug-in hybrid vehicle, and equipped them with a smart meter that serves as the connection point
between the Petersons and their power supply.