Report from Clean-Tech

February 19, 2010

I had the pleasure of participating on a Smart Grid panel at the 2010 Clean-Tech Investor Summit. This is an annual event held in Palm Springs, California that brings together leading investors, Fortune 500 executives, entrepreneurs and service providers for two days of presentations, conversations and networking. Among the important takeaways from this lively discussion was that consumer education is a critical part of successful smart grid rollout, and that the benefits, both to utilities and to consumers, need to be clearly communicated. Further, it is clear that the smart grid revolution is going to happen, and everyone has a lot to learn in a short period of time. One of my co-panelists, Judith Warrick, a utility industry analyst with Morgan Stanley, commented “Smart grid is a matter of survival for the utility industry. In today’s world the utilities’ real customer is the regulator. But that will change with the national rollout of the smart meter. There will be 14 million smart meters in homes by the end of 2010 and 33 million by 2012.” To read the full panel discussion, as well as review content of other presentations at the conference, click here.