Four interim impact studies were published by the Department of Energy in December 2012.These studies were funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 through the Smart Grid Grant Program. The four areas, with initial findings were:

• peak demand reductions of electricity consumption—results reflected a 25% to 37% reduction in consumer demand for electricity by utilizing critical peak pricing and programmable thermostats;
• deployment of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) components—costs for servicing electricity meters reduced by 13% to 77% and costs for vehicle use dropped by 12% to 59%
• management of electricity outages—average outage minutes dropped by -2% to -43%;
• use of automated controls to improve distribution systems—reduced power losses by 0% to 5% and dropped peak demand by 1% to 2.5%.

Although these results are promising, after obtaining the full array of data from all 99 projects, a more complete set of findings will provide better insights into the impact of the various technologies. Nevertheless, the investments reflect substantial potential savings in electricity consumption for U.S. citizens.

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