(Washington, DC) The utility industry is poised at the intersection of energy and broadband as it builds smart grids, a key Administration technology official said today here at UTC's Smart Grid Policy Summit. "This is ground zero," Andrew McLaughlin, Deputy U.S. Chief Technology Officer, Executive Office of the President told Summit attendees.

"The fusion of information flows with the electrical system is one of the great transformations that we will see over the next several decades," McLaughlin said. Government should avoid a top-down approach when it comes to smart grid, he advised. "The strength of the U.S. system is decentralized processes."

Another aspect or "wrinkle" to how the Administration views smart grids is the "international imperative. It is our goal that the United States dominate world markets" when it comes to technological leadership, McLaughlin said.

He recapped the stream of comments received by the Administration in terms of how smart grids should function. One recommendation made by commenters is that consumers should have a clear right to access their own energy data under an optimal smart grid model, McLaughlin, formerly the head of Google Public Policy in San Francisco, said.

Critical to translating data into information that consumers can use is the third party ecosystem. "But you don’t want to overengineer the information," he warned, because that would make the information of less use to tech providers who can fuel innovation in the smart grid.