August 7, 2012. German energy utilities have adopted a half-hearted approach to investment in power grid enhancement despite paying lip service to its necessity in the country's intended strategy change, a consultant's study showed. Rising power influx from solar panels and wind turbines in the future -as Germany expands the sector dramatically and ditches nuclear energy -needs matching by the development of intelligent distribution at local level, known as smart grids. Their job would be to integrate the arrival of green power from remote regions as well as feed back locally-produced power. Local utility association VKU has estimated that the additional cost of information technology for the task could run into 7 billion euros ($8.7 billion) up to 2030. Steria Mummert Consulting polled 100 decision-makers in local utility firms on business plans to 2014 to find that while three quarters were ready to build up their renewable power generation, only half wanted to spend any money on smart grids. Another reason for caution among those questioned was that there will already be higher costs to be factored in for the newbuild of thousands of kilometres of new electricity lines by 2022, to carry more green power across the country. The government presented a 32 billion euros ($39.7 billion) bill in May for building new high voltage networks and upgrading existing ones.