Utilities typically need regulatory approval to set aside money and install smart meters and other equipment.

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The government announced the plan to install smart meters to monitor electricity and gas consumption in 26 million homes earlier this year.

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The primary emissions reductions over the next four years will come from installing more natural gas to replace coal, implementing the higher CAFE standards, rolling out more fully electric cars and beginning to install smart grid components.

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Smart is also in discussions with APCOA, the largest parking garage operator in Europe, to install RFID tags in all smart cars.

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Even Thames Water, most of whose customers have no meters of any sort, is now planning to install some of the smart kind.

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In some parts of the country, utilities have already begun to install so-called "smart meters" in people's homes.

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Here's how it works: Utilities install GridPoint boxes in homes and businesses that essentially become nodes in a smart electric grid.

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Following a successful trial earlier this year in Beijing, GPT recently won the right to supply the systems needed to install in the provincial capital Guangzhou an initial 2, 000 payphones that accept money from smart cards used for other functions as well.

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