A Triangle-bred Smart Grid concept nabbed a $100,000 award from General Electric this morning, proving again that the Smart Grid craze isn't about to fade any time soon.

Durham-based PlotWatt, a six-employee company founded in 2008, was one of five cash prize Innovation Award winners announced this morning in GE's Ecomagination Challenge.

The recognition from a global conglomerate like GE represents a high-profile validation of PlotWatt's energy-efficiency technology, but it's just a fraction of the $1 million in venture capital PlotWatt scored in February.

The company's product, a web-based portal called Energy Dashboard, reputedly can save households 20 percent on their electricity bill. Even more intriguing: PlotWatt's business model calls for distributing the product to homeowners for free, but more on that below.