A smart grid project at North Carolina State University in Raleigh gets students involved in reducing wasted energy. Energy management company Consert is working with the FREEDM (the National Science Foundation-funded Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management) initiative that can locate, measure, and verify energy savings to customers.

The system at NCSU will provide enable students to monitor their energy usage patterns either through a display terminal in their apartments or through a Web site. The system will reduce "ghost consumption" or phantom load wasted energy from devices such as idle water heaters or air conditioners.

The students will be able to choose an amount of savings to shave off their electric bills and will manage each apartment's demand to meet that goal. Consert estimates these efforts will result in a 10 to 15 percent reduction in household energy usage. Participating students will also receive high-speed internet provided by Consert.

Consert's system will also display to students not only how much actual money they're saving, but their effects on the environment. Like many smart grid systems, displaying to households the impact of their individual greenhouse gas reductions will encourage people to cut down on their energy use.

Consert's smart grid technology was designed to ease the adoption of alternative energy sources, like wind and solar and to control the energy demand of plug-in hybrid cars during peak charging hours.

The FREEDM initiative is piloting similar programs at several other institutions including Missouri S&T, Arizona State University, Florida A&M University, Florida State University, RWTH Aachen University in Germany and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland.

The smart grid money provided by the Obama administration's stimulus package has funded the creation of innovative projects such as the NCSU student program. Research such as Consert's will be integral to reducing future energy consumption and creating a more reliable power grid.