I found a Plone site about the Iraqi economy, including news and views regarding regional hookups, stretching as far away as Europe (e.g. through Turkey). That's encouraging. The global grid gets mentioned in this blog, and in neighboring blogs. The buzz around GENI is not new.
Critical Path project (high priority): network the high voltage long distance distribution grids, to facilitate buying and selling of power. ENRON failed to elucidate the vision, got side tracked into attacking California, getting caught in off shore language games around tropical fish 'n stuff. Maybe not really the smartest guys in the room. More of those at Google.