Roman expects to complete the design stage within nine months and begin testing the sensor on a transformer next year. California was but a harbinger for the rest of the nation, he said, if fixes aren't made. Its microsensors will measure strain in the grid, for instance on hot days when everyone cranks on air conditioners. The sensor will identify the stressed points and route the energy path around them, averting power dips or outages. But complicating factors ranging from permits to purse strings limit similar growth in energy hardware.
Deregulation adds another layer of stress on the system.
Before deregulation, utilities generated their own power relatively near the point of use, drawing on outside supplies in emergencies. But deregulation allows electric suppliers from increasingly wider realms to transmit their wares through the grid, adding yet more traffic. Working with a team of 28 universities and two utility companies, Amin is creating software that will give the system not just brains, but near omniscience. At the ground level, the program lets communities of sensors share information and collaborates to help the grid run optimally. At the next level, software digests information from the entire network of sensors to ensure each community's actions benefit the grid as a whole, and corrects them when they don't.