A Norwegian company named after a mythical Norse god is helping power lines transmit as smoothly and evenly as possible with the help of a small magic sphere the size of a soccer ball.

Heimdall Power is bringing its technology—which is already a hit across Europe—to North America, with a first stop in Minnesota and Michigan.

Power lines today, explains Michelle Lewis writing at Electrek, are mostly 'dumb' which is to say that there is no information about how much more electricity is being delivered than is needed, or how much less. No real-time information exists about how they are operating at all in most cases.

For a country like the United States of America where there can be found 160,000 miles of power lines, the untapped potential is enormous.