At the end of June, Washington State had 24,624 plug-in electric vehicles registered. Most were in outlying areas of Seattle, with King County accounting for over half those vehicles. The distribution remains more sparse in the eastern part of the state. Some of those counties overlap with the service territory of Avista Corporation, a utility with natural gas and electric operations in Washington, Idaho and a few pockets of Oregon.

Accenture and OGE Energy Corp. said a seven-year smart-grid program contributed to demand reduction targets by automating control devices using digital technology. The Integrated Volt Var program is part of OG&E’s strategy to drive efficiencies and customer savings that have helped defer investments in power plant capacity.

Southern Company announced Smart Neighborhood initiatives in Atlanta and suburban Birmingham, Alabama. The Smart Neighborhoods will include homes equipped with distributed energy resources and smart home appliances and technologies. They will provide Southern Company and the subsidiaries with information that could further enable the smart grid and lead to new programs, products and services for customers.

The New York PSC last week approved two measures aimed at growing energy storage resources in the state, and helping to meet Gov. Andrew Cuomo's 1,500 MW energy storage target by 2025. Regulators approved a plan for ConEd to significantly expand the use of battery storage systems in its service territory by simplifying the process for private owners.

California is the largest electric-vehicle market in the U.S., accounting for approximately half of the nearly 800,000 EVs on the road nationwide. But, according to surveys conducted by researchers at the University of California, Davis, the rapid growth in the number of EVs and charging stations in the state hasn’t improved consumers’ awareness of plug-in cars.

There is good and bad news for homeowners: Your water heater will need to be replaced some day. Same with your home's HVAC, your lights, thermostat — all of it. Appliances don't last forever. But the good news is that today's generation of appliances is significantly more efficient and many are arriving with network connectivity built in.