Where’s consumer savings in SmartGridCity?

Boulder residents may have been wondering what Xcel Energy’s SmartGridCity really means for them as a consumer.

It is well advertised how good it is for the utility to balance peak demand and enable renewable sources such as solar and wind. But will it lower the monthly home energy bill or reduce energy consumption?

To find some answers, I went to the Smart Energy Summit in Austin, Texas in January. Organized by home-automation consumer-research company Parks Associates, this was the first smart-grid conference focusing on consumer behavior and the new wave of businesses selling into home-automation markets with energy-management tools.

Andres Carvallo, chief…