As “SNL”’s Seth and Amy used to say: Really?! That was my reaction when I first read the findings from a report issued by NanoMarkets this morning; it claims that U.S. government’s policies and regulations are slowing down the smart grid market. Specifically the report says that the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) efforts to set standards for the smart grid is acting as a drag on the market. While governments setting standards for a market isn’t ideal, there’s a couple clear reasons why NIST has stepped in when it comes to the smart grid. First and foremost is that the U.S. government is providing the domestic smart grid market the largest injection of capital in the industry’s history — over $4 billion — in order to kick-start it. Without those funds, which are just starting to trickle down to projects, the smart grid industry would be moving much more slowly, if at all (and a lot more slowly than I think NIST interference would cause).

More here.