Earlier this month, Leigh Moore sat down at a computer and could see, for the first time, a bar graph of her electricity usage — detailed enough to allow her to pinpoint a 30 percent spike on a day she ran two dryer loads. She usually hung her laundry outside, but it had rained, she recalled. 

Moore, who lives in the tiny town of Martindale, near San Marcos, is among the first beneficiaries of the proliferating "smart grid" projects across Texas, which are supposed to save both customers and companies money through more efficient use of energy. "It was just really ...

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