There’s no question that green energy sources have really begun to come into their own lately. Any time you have Texas oil billionaires putting down a king’s ransom to build the world’s largest wind farms, it’s clearly indicative of a sea change in energy markets. And certainly, record high oil prices and ever increasing global temperatures aren’t exactly holding the new technologies back. 

But there’s more to taking green power and making it a reality than simply setting up a forest of windmills in the empty plains of West Texas. Infrastructure must be built to deliver that power to cities, factories, and other places that need it most, and there’s far more to it than stringing up a cable and connecting plugs at either end. Lines have limits as to how much power they can carry, and small amounts of power are lost over distance, even with high-voltage wiring. 

Perhaps the most perplexing power problem of all is brought on by the age of the electrical grid system. Despite being one of the most comprehensive in the world, carrying by far the most power per consumer, the American power grid is woefully out of date. Only a few small carriers, such as Indiana’s Duke Energy deliver what’s termed “smart grid technology” to consumers; that is, power infrastructure that is designed to self-monitor digitally, saving utilities the need to come by and “check the meter” and giving consumers precise readouts of real-time energy usage on their home computers. 

Now, a big player in the computer world—a big, blue player, to be precise—is throwing its considerable weight behind a massive project to modernize the American power supply network from coast to coast. "The biggest challenge of all this is scale," says IBM’s Drew Clark. "If we can find breakthrough technology that enables us to bridge the gap between start-up technologies and utility scale on an industrialized basis where we can rapidly move technologies into place, then that's the killer application." 

Clark, whose official role with IBM involves funding start-ups to better serve the firm’s customers, has noticed the booming green energy industry, and has a vested interest in helping his company usher new firms onto the grid. But again, it’s not as simple as flipping a switch— regulations on utility companies have long favored ensuring as much of the populace receives power as possible, and that incentivizes maintaining outmoded infrastructure over adapting promising, but untested new ideas.

Still, if IBM and other companies are successful in developing both a 21st century power grid, along the software to effectively run and monitor it, the floodgates could open for clean energy startups, from large wind farms, to homeowners with green-powered buildings, looking to sell their excess electricity back to the grid as quickly and competitively as possible.