Walk into this Smart Grid laboratory, and you'll enter into an indoor forest of sturdy utility poles, all mounted with the standard gray equipment you might see on power lines running through your neighborhood.
The half-size poles offer a squirrel's-eye view of the vaunted Smart Grid, as the gear might look to a person lifted by a bucket truck. You can hear birds twittering and crickets chirping as thunder rumbles in the distance – special effects to set the mood.
ABB's $10 million Smart Grid Center of Excellence at N.C. State University's Centennial Campus is wired with real electricity for testing equipment and for product demonstrations to potential customers.
