A state-of-the art laboratory is to be created in Canberra to test the way all kinds of electrical devices, from air-conditioners to electric cars to pool pumps, could be coordinated to cut how much electricity the nation uses.

The people behind the lab at the Australian National University hope it will become the country's main centre for research and development in the emerging technology of "smart grids" - grids that only produce electricity in the right amount and at the right time.

At the moment, for example, the pump that keeps water in a backyard swimming pool churning has no way of co-ordinating with the air-conditioning. But if they could be made to work sensibly together, there's money and carbon dioxide to be saved.

The new Distributed Energy Resources Laboratory at the ANU will test ways of doing that. Its head, Dr Bjorn Sturmberg, said it would make us much more efficient and cost effective.

Read the full Canberra Times article.