A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
Archive for February, 2010

Will Smart Meters Make Smarter Electric Consumers?

Via The Houston Chronicle, a recap of one individual’s experiences with a smart meter.  As with earlier posts on this subject, the conclusion is that – without an opportunity to act or transact – the meter becomes little more than an idle curiosity that quickly loses any clear association with utility.  Smart markets anyone?  As […]

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PowerMeter: Running Low?

Courtesy of Earth2Tech, an interesting report on the tepid uptake thus far of Google’s web-based energy tool, PowerMeter.  As frequent visitors to this blog will note, we do not find these results surprising.  After all, data and information without a purpose or use, rarely seems compelling to the consumers.  Now if Google had a way […]

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Will Consumers Get Smart with Smart Meters? Not Until Smart Markets Give Them A Reason…

Courtesy of Triple Pundit, another look at smart meters and whether consumers take advantage of them.  As frequent visitors to this blog know, we believe that smart meters are only going to be effective and utilized widely when there are transactive opportunities users can engage in, namely smart markets.  As the article notes: “…Smart metering, […]

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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.