1. UTILITIES:
Xcel starts turning Boulder, Colo., into a 'smart grid' Skinner Box

If you can think of electricity as a chain that connects the power plant to your portable music player, you can grasp the notion of "smart grid." Broadly, smart grid means applying modern, digital technology to the analog world of electricity infrastructure. But what makes a grid smart is anybody's guess right now. Xcel Energy, a utility serving eight states -- Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin -- aims to firm up the definition. With a pilot program called Smart Grid City, the company is installing a network of technologies it says will serve as a "living laboratory" to test smart-grid components. Go to story #1