The FCC’s (News - Alert) recently announced National Broadband Plan has been getting a lot of attention, and for good reason. As consumers, we cannot get enough broadband in our homes, and there are lots of studies out there showing how important broadband is to economic growth as well as overall competitiveness on the global stage. While that topic will rightly get most of the headlines, the Broadband Plan is also highly relevant to the smart grid.

This week GE chimed in, voicing their support for this story line, and I’m hoping that’s the first of many major players to strengthen this connection. GE’s message was to reiterate the importance of having a flexible approach in modernizing the utility grid, and to be open to what broadband has to offer. Taking this a step further, they are also advocating for dedicated smart grid spectrum to enable all utilities to modernize on a common path. It goes without saying that GE stands to benefit from smart grid, as they are a major player for both utility infrastructure and home appliances. However, I’d rather get beyond that and look at the bigger picture.

First, mainstream brands like GE are in the perfect spot to tell this story to the public, and show utilities why broadband has an important role to play in the smart grid. The stimulus funding has been welcome news for utilities, and part of the message here is to show that broadband will help them get a better return on this investment. In my view, if other major smart grid/energy players follow suit – IBM, Emerson, Cisco (News - Alert), etc. – the message will become that much clearer, and more difficult for utilities to dismiss.

This is not to say that utilities are not embracing broadband. However, it has not been the norm, and as GE stresses, there is more to broadband than just faster Internet service. In speaking with Mark Dudzinski, chief marketing officer of GE Energy, there is a more fundamental story to get across. First and foremost, broadband – and all Internet technologies – are built on open, standards-based systems. As utilities modernize their networks, they must recognize the need to integrate with many vendors and technologies, as well as with other utilities. This can only work with standardization; otherwise, utilities will simply evolve independently without any overarching plan to make the grid more efficient.

As we have learned in the world of telecom and Internet communications, this approach leads to faster deployment of services, improved quality and reliability, lower costs, better operating efficiencies, and continuous innovation. One could argue that utilities remain monopolistic and have less reason to operate this way, but by the same token, leaving broadband out of the equation will undoubtedly limit the benefits of any Smart Grid initiative.

Coming back to GE, Mark added another layer to strengthen the storyline. Aside from their products and technologies, he noted that GE is also a major generator of both wind and solar power. Renewable energy is – and should be – an important element of the smart grid, but really needs a broadband infrastructure to add value. The intermittent and non-storable nature of wind and solar energy requires utilities to have near real-time network capability to tap these sources and bring them into the grid when they have value. If the network is too slow or unreliable, they will get limited benefit from these sources, and will instead need to rely on more costly and less green energy supplies to serve peak demand cycles.

Shifting over to the home, the need for broadband is even more evident. Today’s smart grid applications are quite limited, but we all know the future will be very different, and utilities will simply be hamstrung if they cannot provide sufficient bandwidth into the home. Not only will broadband enable utilities to monitor valuable usage data for a wide range of endpoints and appliances, but also open up avenues for new services and revenue streams.

On this front, GE has been particularly proactive, and helps explain their advocacy for the broadband plan. Today, their hot water heaters are smart grid-enabled, but by year end, Mark explained that over 500 GE home appliances will have this capability. Simply put the more smart grid-enabled products a utility can connect with, the more powerful their smart grid deployments will become. 

To conclude, I should add that GE is not alone on this front. They are one of 15 companies supporting the Smart Green Grid Initiative, which was founded in October 2009. Their mandate ties the smart grid to bigger picture issues such as climate change and renewable energy. Every time we do laundry, there is a small opportunity to save energy, but when tied into a broadband-based smart grid infrastructure, utilities have a substantial opportunity to better manage energy resources and make the environment greener for all of us.