PORTLAND, Ore. — Employees at the Iberdrola Renewables National Control Center are monitoring supply and demand curves in the Midwest, keeping an eye on bird migration patterns in south Texas, placing phone calls to electricity marketers out West and checking wind patterns across the country on 16 TV screens. It is a dizzying process that funnels 1.2 million bits of data through this office every four to 10 seconds.

And to think, keeping the lights on used to be so simple.