The Indian company Reliance Energy has become one of eight utilities businesses to agree to provide smart meters enabling customers to monitor their energy use online and ultimately cut consumption.
Reliance will combine with the huge internet company Google to provide the technology. Resaerch suggests that most customers cut energy consumption by between five and ten per cent when they know how much they are using.
The other seven companies taking part are in North America. Standards needed for the inter-operability and security of the smart grid were announced after a meeting between industry leaders, the US energy secretary Steven Chu and the commerce secretary Gary Locke at the White House.
