Smart grid technology offers major improvements and efficiencies for our power system, creating a dynamically responsive grid that can do things like manage peak load energy consumption, optimize transmission routes, smoothly integrate other generation options like solar and wind, and can help users monitor and control their own consumption (including creating more accurate pricing for energy). To do this, though, it needs continuous and real-time data about energy use — and as it turns out individual appliances have a “load signature,” a visible pattern of consumption — which is to say, a way of looking right inside individual homes from the feed of their power use. IEEE has some interesting analysis of the privacy problems and how they could be remediated.
(Hat tip to Solon!)