THE glowing amber dot on a light switch in the entryway of George Tsapoitis' house offers a clue about the future of electricity.
A few times this summer, when millions of air conditioners strain the Toronto region's power grid, that pencil-tip-sized amber dot will blink. It will be asking Tsapoitis to turn the switch off - unless he's already programmed his house to make that move for him.
This is the beginning of a new way of thinking about electricity, and the biggest change in how we get power since wires began veining the landscape a century ago.
For all the engineering genius behind the electric grid, that vast network ferrying energy from power plants through transmission lines isn't particularly smart when it meets our homes. We flip a switch or plug something in and generally get as much power as we're willing to pay for.
But these days the environmental consequences and unfriendly economics of energy appear unsustainable. As a result, power providers and technology companies are making the electric grid smarter.
It will stop being merely a passive supplier of juice. Instead, power companies will be able to cue us, like those amber lights in Tsapoitis' house, to make choices about when and how we consume power. And most likely, we'll have our computers and appliances carry out those decisions for us.
Done right, the smarter grid should save consumers money in the long run by reducing the need for new power plants, which we pay off in our monthly electric bills. However, if people fail to react properly to conservation signals, their bills could spike.
And certainly a smart grid that can encourage us to conserve will feel different. Envision your kitchen appliances in silent communication with their power source: The fridge bumps its temperature up a degree on one day, and the dishwasher kicks on a bit later on another.
Smart-grid technologies have gotten small tests throughout North America, as utilities and regulators scout how to coax people to reduce their demand for power. But there's little doubt it's coming. The utility Xcel Energy Inc plans to soon begin a US$100 million smart grid project reaching 100,000 homes in Boulder, Colorado.
In Milton, Ontario, where dense subdivisions encroach on farm fields, a test with the Tsapoitis family and 200 other households reveals what will be possible - and how much more work needs to happen.
Tsapoitis uses his computer to visit an online control panel that configures his home's energy consumption. He chooses its temperature and which lights should be on or off at certain times of the day. He can set rules for different kinds of days, so the house might be warmer and darker on summer weekdays when his family is out.
The family can override those changes manually, whether it's by turning on the porch light or raising the thermostat. But the system guards against waste. If midnight comes and no one has remembered to lower the thermostat and turn off the porch light, those steps just happen.
These little tweaks add up nicely for another person testing the Milton system, Marian Rakusan. He's saved at least US$300 on utility bills since the program began in September. Tsapoitis and his wife, Lisa, aren't certain of their savings but say their 222-square-meter home has lower energy bills than a friend's 167-square-meter home. This alone is not revolutionary, because programmable thermostats and other "smart home" controls let people craft similar resource-saving plans. The big change here is the combination of these controls with that blinking amber light on the switch - where the grid talks back.
Milton's local gas and electricity retailer, Direct Energy, will set those amber dots blinking in an emergency. It might happen a few times in a summer month. Maybe there will be congestion in Ontario's overtaxed transmission network. Perhaps a power plant will be down for maintenance. Or rapacious air conditioners will overwhelm electric capacity.
People in Milton's test are expected to configure a "brownout" setting on their computers, indicating how their homes should respond in such a situation. In this test, Direct Energy also will enforce conservation remotely. It can raise the set temperature in a participant's home by 2 degrees Celsius in the summer, reducing its air conditioning load. The company also has permission to shut off the testers' hot-water heaters and electric pool pumps for four hours at time during these power emergencies.
Tsapoitis shrugs at that aspect of the arrangement. It's better than rolling blackouts. Rakusan, however, says he's not sure he likes the idea of the power company tweaking his home's settings.
Indeed, it appears unlikely that broad swaths of the public will accept remote control from the power company.
California officials recently had to back away from a proposal to require remote-controlled thermostats in new buildings.
So a more likely scenario is that consumers will get powerful economic incentives to make those decisions themselves.
"We just can't keep building more coal plants," says Roy Palmer, head of regulatory affairs at Xcel Energy.
So until some bountiful and clean power source can be delivered cheaply, electric utilities are pressured to properly manage the generating capacity we already have.