Âé¶¹´«Ã½

Technology

Smart-grid 'stockbrokers' to manage your power

By Duncan Graham-Rowe

2 March 2011

Âé¶¹´«Ã½. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Bright lights, big savings

(Image: Livio Sinibald/Getty)

IT SOUNDS strange, but leaving your cellphone plugged in when you’re not using it could help cut your carbon footprint. Even better, it could reduce your electricity bill. We just need to start using smart-software agents – programs that act on our behalf – to manage how we store our electricity and charge our devices.

In many countries electricity is charged on a two-tier pricing system – peak or off-peak – even though the real cost of generating electricity varies much more widely, depending upon how much a customer base consumes.

This is because in order to…

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