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

The Smart Grid As A Bridge Between Utilities, Customers, Interest Groups, and Politics

Courtesy of Greenbiz.com, an interesting article on utilities’ need – in order to assert the full potential of the smart grid and prevent this transformation from becoming a utility “bridge to nowhere” –  to lay hold of the inherent “gap bridging” power of the smart grid itself.  As the report notes: “…We need a smart […]

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Smart Meters, Dumb Meters, (In)credible Meters, No Meters…Where Does It Lead?

While we have discussed our view of the limited chance of success for smart meters without smart markets, two recent articles caught our eye.  The first, via Jeff Nolan’s blog, emphasizes that PG&E’s reluctance to acknowledge problems in its smart electricity meter roll out until recently have erased most of the public’s trust in utility-led […]

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Smart Meters – Smart For Who?

Courtesy of Earth2Tech, an interesting analysis of utilities’ motivations to installing smart meters.  As the article notes, utilities may not really have had consumers in mind during these infrastructure deployments: “…Two recent smart grid surveys stand in sharp contrast to each other. Respondents to T&D’s global survey believe that the purpose of smart grid investments […]

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Technology + Dynamic Pricing = Conservation

Originally noted by Lynne Kiesling in the excellent Knowledge Problem blog, technology plus dynamic pricing can help drive conservation.  As Ms. Kiesling notes: “…I love this story; it’s like Knowledge Problem + Aguanomics = individual choice, efficiency, conservation, and elegance. Water conservation is a large and growing concern, in large part because our public policy […]

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Going With The Flow: Smart Water Meters Take Hold In California

While power tends to get most of the attention, there are exciting developments in the world of water as well.  Courtesy of The New York Times, a report that smart water meters are taking off in California, according to a forthcoming report from the California Energy Commission.  As the article notes: “…More than half of […]

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Smart Ideas For The Smart Grid: Focusing On Consumers, Money, and Innovation

A triumvirate of articles on smart meters, smart grids, and consumers and – given this blog’s insistence that consumer interest as enabled by smart markets for electricity and water will be the key to activating the smart grid – we wanted to share them all. First, via Earth2Tech, a nice summary of the energy market […]

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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.