The smart money in the smart-grid space is swimming upstream and doing so as speedily as possible.

FORBES: Smart Grid Vendors Swim Upstream

By taking the plunge on FMC Tech, GE is expanding its offerings in a particularly promising area of the smart-grid space: distribution automation.

FORBES: GE Gobbles Up More of the Smart Grid

Outfits operating in the smart-grid space like Accenture, IBM and General Electric would be reckless not to read the writing on the wall revealed by the report.

FORBES: Why Smart People Are Suspicious of Smart Meters

Two rival metering models used in large commercial buildings to track the flow of electricity as it moves through a building shows the difference between upstream and downstream applications in the smart-grid space.

FORBES: Smart Grid Vendors Swim Upstream

Unlike Google and Microsoft, most of the remaining companies in the smart-grid space have targeted large electric utilities like Duke Energy and Consolidated Edison of New York with services and products that most consumers have no idea exist.

FORBES: Smart Grid Vendors Swim Upstream

As interoperability and cyber-security standards become increasingly established over the next year, it will be easier to pick winners and losers in the smart-grid space and perilous for multinationals to sit on the sidelines as their competitors corral control over a promising growth industry.

FORBES: Toshiba Buys Smart-Grid Pioneer

"There's a desire to step out of the rat race, and in America, that goes very deep in the national psyche, " says Nick Rosen, author of "Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America" and editor of www.off-grid.net.

CNN: 5 great spots for dropping off the grid