Florida is getting $200 million in stimulus money to create a ``smart grid'' for utility customers that should result in lower electric usage, government officials announced Tuesday morning.

The money is going to Energy Smart Florida, a program involving Florida Power & Light that plans to install 2.6 million smart meters in homes and advanced monitoring systems in the grid substations, a federal official said. ``The impact of this will be felt throughout Florida.''

The money is coming from $3.4 billion that President Barack Obama announced Tuesday as part of a package to bring America's power system into the 21st century.

White House officials provided details of the initiative just before Obama's scheduled visit to FPL's DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Fla., the largest photovoltaic electricity facility in the country.

The Florida smart grid program was announced in April by Miami Mayor Manny Diaz and chief executives of four major national companies in a plan in which every home in Miami-Dade would get a ``smart meter'' to allow customers to monitor their usage of electricity and help them find ways to slash their electric bills.

At a conference in downtown Miami, Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric, said the system would be the ``largest, most integrated project of its kind'' in the nation.

The April plan called for the Miami-Dade project to cost about $200 million, with half of that coming from the federal stimulus package. ``We believe in doing the right thing for our customers,'' FPL Group Chief Executive Lew Hay said in April.

The funds announced Tuesday apparently expand the program statewide.

Some other cities -- such as Austin, Texas, and Boulder, Colo. -- have started similar green initiatives, but the Miami-Dade effort is on a much grander scale, Immelt said in Miami. ``This is not a test -- not a hobby -- this is a big business application.''

Smart meters allow consumers to see what's happening with their usage -- and costs. They can set the air conditioning at 78 degrees when they leave home for a few hours. A wireless chip inside the meter sends the information to the Internet, where the customer can see his costs on a daily, or even hourly, basis.

The next day, the homeowner could set the temperature to 81 degrees when she leaves the house and see how that cost compares with the 78 degrees. The same can be done with a water heater and pool pump timers. Such smart meters have been part of a pilot project of 100,000 homes in Broward County, with neighborhoods being phased in from 2007 through last September.

The $3.4 billion in grants from the government's economic stimulus program will be matched by $4.7 billion in private investments, the officials said.

The smallest grant will be $400,000 and the largest $200 million. ``We have a very antiquated [electric grid] system in our country,'' said Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change. ``The current system is outdated, it's dilapidated.''

Browner said the federal funding will spur the needed modernization of the grid and set the stage for the smooth introduction of large amounts of electricity from wind or solar sources into the transmission system.

Matt Rogers, the Energy Department official involved in the program, said the 100 projects were selected from 400 proposals. The money would be distributed over the next two months and the work is expected to be done over the next one to three years, he said.

The push to essentially bring modern computer and communications technology to the electric grid has been under way for some time but has gained momentum with the prospect of billions of dollars in federal support.

Rogers said the government funds will allow installation of 18 million smart meters and one million other in-home devices as well as more modern thermostats to allow homeowners to better monitor their electricity usage.

The government and industry want to deploy 40 million smart meters -- wall-based units that can monitor how much electricity various appliances use and turn them off when energy is costlier to consume -- within the next several years.

Other projects funded under the program will result in the installation of 850 sensors to allow utilities to better monitor the grid; the installation of 200,000 digital transformers to reduce the risk of power outages; and the automation of 700 grid substations.

``This will save or create tens of thousands of jobs,'' said Jared Bernstein, chief economist and economic advisor to Vice President Joe Biden.

He said the jobs will include equipment installers and electrical engineers as well as communications systems analysts and data entry clerks.

This report was supplemented with material from The Associated Press.

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