Four big reasons to get behind the smart grid [Video]

With venture capital flooding in and stimulus money on the way, the smart grid is taking shape — and the business world stands to benefit

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Energy is the life-blood of commerce. The smart grid — an intelligent electricity-delivery system drawing significant interest from the U.S. government, venture capital investors, startup companies, and established tech giants, including IBM, Cisco, GE, and Google — promises to make that energy flow more freely, more reliably, more efficiently, and at lower costs to both consumers and businesses.

Just one of the benefits of the smart grid — reducing power outages — arguably helps justify the federal government’s desired investment of $17 billion in federal funds into transmission and smart-grid investments. According to Electric Power Research Institute estimates, power outages cost U.S. business at least $50 billion a year.

But reducing power outages is but one of the potential benefits of connecting utilities and consumers …