Any Facility Manager will tell you that power for their building is very important, and that the quality of that power is critical in many of their buildings. In fact, concern for clean reliable power is at the forefront of worry for FMs.

In late October, President Barack Obama announced the release of $3.4 billion in grants under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act to spur the growth of the smart grid. The grants, which are matched by another $4.6 billion in private investment, will be enough to fund the deployment of 18 million smart meters, among other projects. That's 10 percent of all the meters in the country. With those meters, the nation will come one step closer to transforming its electricity grid into a smart grid.

The term "smart grid" is a simple phrase used to describe a complex idea. The easiest way for facility executives to think of Smart Grid is to consider it as an upgrade to the nation's electric generation and distribution infrastructure that sends power and data on the grid in two directions instead of just one.

The goal is to improve the metering and control of the power flow.

Smart Grid has several goals, among them better security, better support for renewable energy, and of course, real time communication. One goal that can help facility executives understand Smart Grid is the push to improve the efficiency of the nation's power grid.

As many facility executives know, the electrical grid is actually becoming less reliable even as demands for clean, reliable power increase. Digital equipment is significantly more sensitive to voltage disruptions than the equipment used in commercial and industrial facilities 30 years ago. Reliability problems crop up not only in the form of interruptions but also as poor power quality. Presently, the existing grid is 99.97 percent reliable but interruptions cost the economy $150 billion annually, according to a 2008 estimate from the Galvin Electricity Initiative.

The Northeast blackout of 2003 illustrated just how costly the current approach to power delivery can be. The four-day blackout in August affected more than 50 million people in the Eastern United States and Canada, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, causing $4.5 billion in economic losses.

On a business level, Galvin estimated in 2008 that one hour of downtime can cost a cellular communications company $41,000. A brokerage operation stands to lose $6.5 million per hour.

While facility executives often have backup systems in place in mission critical systems, such systems aren't always failsafe either. As the 2003 blackout illustrated, not all facilities are designed to operate for days off the grid during a severe outage.