A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
Archive for July, 2009

Efficiency 2.0: A Smarter Monitoring System?

Courtesy of Earth2Tech, a look at Efficiency 2.0, another entrant into the widening field of energy monitoring programs recently launched – Google Powermeter, Microsoft Hohm, GE’s Home Energy Manager, and eMeter, to name a few.  As the article notes: “…one New York-based startup called Efficiency 2.0, which has spent the past four years developing sophisticated […]

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Smart Grid’s Ultimate Enabler: Smart Markets & Smart Customers

Via Smart Grid News, an interesting article on the key role that smart markets and smart customers will play in energizing the smart grid.  As the report notes: “…The vocabulary of the Smart Grid is focused on interoperability, but who is assuring operability? That is, where is the market for operability and how will it […]

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Cost – Benefit Analysis Of Smart Meters

Courtesy of The Oil Drum blog, a detailed analysis which concludes that the cost of implementing smart meters appears justified by the resource savings available and by the operational benefits to implementing utilities.  As the article notes, the case for smart meters is strong in areas with high electricity rates (e.g. California, the Mid-Atlantic states, […]

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Do Smart Meters Forget About Consumers?

Via The Energy Collective, an interesting commentary on the fact that consumers – unfortunately – seem to be after-thoughts when it comes to smart meter deployments and the ability to obtain & use real-time data about their electricity use.  This is one reason the authors of this blog have long felt the deployment of smart […]

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A Slow Market For Meters in 2009?

Via GreenTech Media’s Green Light blog, a somewhat sobering report on the outlook for publicly-traded smart meter companies.  As the article notes: “…Tuesday’s smart grid news includes a report casting a dim light on publicly traded smart meter makers’ prospects for the rest of 2009, as well as a win for smart grid networking startup […]

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Smart Microgrids

An interesting look at smart microgrids, courtesy of The Energy Collective.  As the article notes, community- or affinity-based microgrids may actually underpin development of a larger smart grid: “…Valence Energy is a fresh new technology company working to develop and deploy a package of energy management solutions for institutional campuses, universities or entire neighborhoods known […]

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About This Blog And Its Authors
Grid Unlocked is powered by two eco-preneurs who analyze and reference articles, reports, and interviews that can help unlock the nascent, complex and expanding linkages between smart meters, smart grids, and above all: smart markets.

Based on decades of experience and interest in conservation, Monty Simus believes that a truly “smart” grid must be a “transactive” grid, unshackled from its current status as a so-called “natural monopoly.”

In short, an unlocked grid must adopt and harness the power of markets to incentivize individual users, linked to each other on a large scale, who change consumptive behavior in creative ways that drive efficiency and bring equity to use of the planet's finite and increasingly scarce resources.