Smart Power - An energy system transformation from chip to grid

The smart use of power is not simply a matter of energy conservation. Rather, "smart" power is the efficient use of energy for applications at many different scales. In the past 30 years we\´ve witnessed dramatic performance and energy efficiency improvements in automobiles, passenger aircraft, steel manufacturing, agriculture, computer systems and many other sectors. Computer systems have demonstrated perhaps the most impressive example of combined performance and energy efficiency improvement. The number of instructions per second per watt that a computer can execute has increased approximately 3 million percent since the late 1970s. To put this in context, if a modern laptop capable of meeting today\´ s functional demands were to operate at the energy efficiency of a computer from 1990, the laptop\´ s fully charged battery would last less than 3 seconds. Although this illustrates an impressive achievement in performance and efficiency, further advances will be required in many different areas. Consumers are becoming increasingly connected to electronic devices for all forms of business and personal activities and electrical grids are incorporating increasing amounts of distributed and intermittent sources of clean energy to meet rapidly growing demand in an environmentally sound manner. These trends are driven by both personal and societal interests and necessitate a smart energy system capable of handling a massive and integrated flow of information and electricity.