In the US, everybody (including President Obama) loves the Smart Grid, but somehow the political and regulatory will to make it happen is still coalescing. Putting so-called Smart Meters on our homes would allow us to control when we buy electricity and how much we use, institute "time of use" pricing, and enable us to cut  demand rather than throwing the switch on coal -fired power plants when electricity demand is at its peak. Down the road, it will encourage the development of battery-like appliances that draw electricity when it's cheap (aka at night); facilitate the sales of late-night power such as wind; and reward people who produce power and feed it back onto the grid.  All good, but even though the technology is mostly available, the US is moving at a snail's pace. And India is dashing forward...

 Check out this article in the Times of India about the entreprenuers who have gone into the business of making electrical inverters that enable people to charge batteries from the grid and then run their appliances on DC power from the batteries. India's utilities spend much of the summer stressed out, aggressively "load shedding"--ie scheduling rolling blackouts to neighborhoods and businesses daily. To accomodate this, people have started installing batteries and inverters so that they can run their TV's, lights, and fans during regular brownouts. Demand for the inverters has grown so rapidly that autorickshaw drivers who don't know anything about electricity are getting in on the act! (For some dazzling drawings of inverter complexity, see the wikipedia entry.) But by installing inverters, they're making a rapid, uncoordinated bass-ackwards transition to a low-functioning Smart Grid. I think it's the way of the future. 

This is an example of how quickly the paradigm for energy use can change from plugs to batteries. 

 But wait, there's more:  the transition to a smart grid could set off a wave of entrepreneurialism in the US. Remember those batty Ronco devices like the Inside the Shell Egg Scrambler? Imagine if Ronco started designing devices combining wacky convenience and green-tinged penny pinching.

And India's experience points out other opportunities for non profit entreprenuers. The efficiency and safety of inverters seems to vary wildly. NGO's could help the cottage industry of inverter producers by creating a kit or prototype of the safest, most efficient ones and then helping entrepreneurs build them. In the meantime, facilitating this kind of energy storage could make some cost-effective wind, solar, and recycled power more feasible in India and across the developing world.