States are getting ahead of California in moving to a smart grid with time-of-use rates or peak power pricing to drive conservation. Many are already beginning to roll out automated management systems that provide control of energy-using devices in homes and small businesses to help put them on par with big companies in optimizing energy use. Baltimore Gas & Electric is one in deregulated Maryland. The utility is preparing to offer all of its customers this coming summer an online system to help them manage their energy use based on data fed from “smart” meters. By summer of 2013, variable rate pricing for residential customers is to take effect. Already, residential customers can enroll in time-of-use pricing plans. Back home it’s largely talk, talk. Little seems to actually happen on many of these goals as the shadow of the energy crisis still appears to hang long over any attempt to update a market structure that’s been largely static for much of the last decade.