A company the size of Cisco (CSCO) needs to find massive market opportunities. So why not the electric grid? No doubt, it needs lots of improvement. In fact, there is an emerging trend towards making it much smarter. And no doubt, Cisco's technology can be a big help.

At the same time, the company is revving up its acquisitions machine. The latest deal is for Arch Rock. The financial details were not disclosed.

"A smart grid is one of the holy grails of 'green' technology, enabling utilities to deliver resources when and where they're needed and reduce resources when they're not," says Brendan Coffey.

In The Cabot Green Investor, he explains, "There are larger companies in the smart metering arena, but Echelon (NASDAQ: ELON) has posted some significant wins in the marketplace recently and appears primed to generate more."

"Right now, grids are set up to provide as much power as needed at peak times, all the time. Studies show that when customers are part of a smart grid, and have more information to reduce energy usage, demand is slashed by up to 50%, particularly in areas where rates are discounted depending on the time of day.

Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) has been one of the largest domestic champions of hybrid and electric vehicle technology in the past three years. Its Escape small SUV hybrid and Fusion passenger car hybrid are excellent sellers. What Ford hasn't publicly talked about is how the eventual transition to partial or full electric personal propulsion will affect the supply and demand of electric energy in the U.S.

In other words, the U.S. could not just transition from gas-powered vehicles to hundreds of thousands (or millions) of hybrid or full-electric vehicles in just a decade or so and not expect the electrical grid to be as happy as a clam. Power is cheaper to supply at night and the way we actually use electricity (washing dishes at night, as well as clothes, for example) has a huge impact on cost and other factors. Ford wants to make sure its hybrid and electric customers know this.

The venture capital (VC) industry demonstrated its commitment to the clean technology space in the second quarter of 2009, pumping $1.2 billion into the sector, according to a report by GTM Research. VC investments in cleantech are up 43.5% from the first quarter of the year, when $836 was put into play in the cleantech space.

The number of transactions increased, as well. In the first quarter, 59 deals were completed, and deal-flow surged 44% to 85 in the quarter just finished. Average deal size remained fairly consistent: $14.2 million for the first quarter and $14.1 for the second.

"A smart grid makes use of coded signals that travel along power lines, much like DSL broadband messages move through the phone telephone," explains growth stock expert Jim Powell.

In Global Changes & Opportunities Report, he looks at two favorite plays on the development of a smart grid: Esco Technologies (NYSE: ESE) and Quanta Services (NYSE: PWR).

"In a smart grid, the signals allow electric meters to report power consumption automatically to suppliers. At the same time, signals can be sent to customer's appliances such as freezers and refrigerators to prevent them from cycling on and off at the same time.

The best example of an iconic American industrial giant is General Electric (NYSE: GE). The company has so many diverse revenue sources that it's hard to know where to begin.

Capital, energy infrastructure, technology infrastructure and entertainment are all part of the GE family.

During the past year or so, the company's capital division has fallen on hard times. But we think that when the pain subsides in the financial sector, GE's money side will likely regain its health.

On the energy infrastructure side, we know that the Obama plan to put billions of dollars into a new, 21st-century "smart" electric power grid will likely include the biggest and best companies in this sector.

GE is unquestionably one of the biggest and best in this field, and their expertise in building out our energy generation system will be a big part of what gets America back on the road toward a brighter future.

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Jim Woods is a Senior Editor for OptionsZone.com.

It seems that we are moving ever closer to the home of tomorrow that we were promised in those Tom & Jerry cartoons (remember those?). Search giant Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced that it will enter into the burgeoning "smart grid" business, which will help reduce electrical energy consumption.

How will the technology work? Well, GOOG has developed a free service called PowerMeter, which consumers can use to track energy usage while it is being consumed in their homes or businesses. Don't worry, this isn't some Big Brother situation, GOOG is not becoming the all-powerful Oz here. According to the head of GOOG's philanthropy arm (yes, they have one), the technology will "depend on a whole ecosystem of utilities, device makers and policies that would allow consumers to have detailed access to their home energy use."