Ahoy! Ye mates!

The fair Energy Central Sloop moored this week in Tampa lagoon, hard upon the frigate convention center, where it was market day. Assembled from across the land were purveyors of devices, services and brain power - all dedicated to getting the lights turned on in new, efficient ways.

In town for the fair was Guido Bartels, head of IBM's global energy and utility practice and chairman of the Gridwise Alliance. He shared his dream a fast international alliances of visionaries dedicated to upgrading the grid around the world. "Building a global movement will help national agendas," he said. His alliance in the past year grew its membership seven-fold to 130, and that hardy crew is now ready to embrace a "mission to modernize the U.S. electrical system from generation to consumption," Bartels said.

Sharon Allan, a leader of Accenture's smart grid efforts, said that the energy industry should not sit transfixed, waiting for Washington to cobble together a carbon policy. Referring to smart grid, she saId, "People are doing it whether there is a price on carbon or not."

Dan Gillison, Sprint's national director of mobility and productivity sales, said "doing it" will require empowering "mobile workers" and "wireless enablement of infrastructure."

And it will require smart meters. That is why Russ Vanos, Itron vice president of marketing, had a nice relaxed smile as he relaxed aboard our pirate sloop. Back order? "We have $1.8 billion in back orders," he said, "the strongest in our history." A year ago, a period of dark recessionary clouds, it stood at $1 billion.

Travis Richardson, Telvent senior vice president of products and technology, was on hand, telling the story of how his company orchestrates the transmission and distribution of over 140,000 gigawatt-hours through electrical grids. Over dinner, he also talked about his passion for piano and jazz.

Also in port was Linda Jackman, Oracle Utilities group vice president, and we continued an ongoing discussion about how the energy industry can best prepare itself for the tsunami of information coming its way. And she spoke of Oracle's deployment of solar back at corporate headquarters - and its unique contribution for mastering the energy of the winds - at the America's Cup recently seized by BMW Oracle.

Entrepreneur Adrian Tuck, CEO of Tendril, talked about his vision of spreading a web of technology throughout the home to bring about a new energy reality of efficiency. As he tapped slick wall data displays - small and large, we chatted about the challenges and opportunities revolving around the transformation of consumer energy behavior.

No doubt about it. The recessionary clouds are parting. The winds of federal largesse have begun to fill many sails. And many in the energy industry expect those sails to truly balloon as the energy revolution takes hold.