Unlike the telecommunications revolution that was spawned by the 1984 breakup of AT&T's telephone service monopoly, there is no single legislative stroke that will unleash climate-helping "smart grid" technologies.

According to experts, it may take a combination of major citywide or statewide demonstrations of new "green" grid technologies plus federal leadership to overcome strong resistance from risk-averse utility managers and regulators.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, explained the analogy between the telephone industry's upheaval and the potential infusion of new technology across the nation's power earlier this week at a hearing:

"In an era when we have gone from black rotary phones to BlackBerrys, from three TV stations on the large appliance in your living room to YouTube on the tiny device in your pocket, we need to do better. Smart grid technologies can alter the way we use electricity, allow distributed generation to be sold to the grid, help utilities to integrate intermittent renewable resources, allow us to reduce carbon emissions, and allow self-healing of the grid when the system goes down," Markey said.

The widespread installation of sensors and control devices on the nation's high-voltage transmission networks, coupled with instantaneous communications among grid managers, generators and customers, could dramatically reduce electricity losses and waste and improve efficiency in power supply, said Tom Casey, CEO of Current Group LLC, one of the witnesses at the hearing.

The Germantown, Md.-based company is a smart grid technology provider operating projects in Texas and Colorado. "A smart grid in many ways is like an Internet for electricity, a network of devices that are monitored and managed with real-time communications and computer intelligence," he said.

Studies estimate that a smart grid would reduce carbon emissions from electric generating plants by one-quarter, cutting overall U.S. carbon emissions by 10 percent, Casey said. "Without a radically expanded and smarter electrical grid, wind and solar will remain niche power sources," he said. Wind and solar power is inherently harder to manage across a grid because of weather variability, and distributed solar units on homes or offices that may feed power into the grid pose important grid safety concerns.

Power company managers and 'institutional inertia'

A key hurdle to the introduction of new technologies is the reluctance of many power utility managers and state utility regulators to welcome investments in new technologies that may have long financial paybacks or inject new risks for grid failures, several witnesses said.

"It is highly likely neither the Google nor the iPod of home energy management has been invented yet, and it is just as likely that it will not be invented by a traditional vendor of utility equipment," Casey said. Utilities will have to be given solid financial incentives to deploy smart grid technology, he added.

"Utilities ... focus on minimizing risk, and consequently, utilities are often slow to adopt new technologies that have not been extensively proven on a large installed base," said Allan Schurr, vice president of IBM Global Energy and Utilities. IBM has joined a research project in Denmark to link electric vehicles with wind power generators, timing the recharging of vehicles to changes in wind strength.

"Utilities have strong regulatory and financial incentives to spend money on more traditional items, such as new power generation plants, rather than acquiring new technology to make more efficient use of existing power," Schurr added. "We believe smart grid advancement is now dependent on overcoming the institutional inertia of the existing regulatory models and utility business." It may be crucial for the federal government to fund large-scale demonstrations of new technologies to create a case for widespread investment by utilities, he added.

Leave the cooler door open in Sacramento and it sets off alarms in Bentonville

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Vice President Charles Zimmerman said his company is creating its own demonstrations, pushing ahead with energy-saving strategies for lighting and temperature systems at its thousands of big-box stores. Skylights let in daylight, and store controls can adjust store lighting to compensate when clouds roll by.

The systems are monitored and controlled from the company's Bentonville, Ark., home office. "If an associate in Sacramento leaves the door to a walk-in cooler open, we know it. If a store manager in Chicago overrides her daylight harvesting system, we know it. And if a freezer in Miami is icing up and needs to be defrosted, we know it."

Congress must provide "a clear and consistent guide to who pays for additions to the electronic superhighway," said James Hoecker, a former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, testifying as counsel to WIRES, an industry consortium promoting grid expansion.

Congress is about to take up the politically charged issue of how states and the federal government divide authority over the expansion and modernization of the grid. Hoecker said that a new regulatory compact is needed that is built on broad regional planning and policies. But inertia and vested interests may be hard to overcome. "Under current circumstances, such a regime will require federal leadership," he said.