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

A Smart Grid Defined: “One That Empowers Consumers…”

Courtesy of The Atlantic, a clarion cry for a smart grid that is defined not in what it might offer interest groups, or why it’s a “good idea” for utilities, but in how it will empower consumers to save energy and money, encourage innovation in technology and markets, and create a stable atmosphere for investment […]

Read more »



Consumer Power: Time-To-Drawer, A Home Energy Management Bubble, and The Need To Engage Consumers

Courtesy of Clean Techies, an interesting article on the power of energy consumers, specifically the need to engage consumers or risk watching the home energy management & energy information display industries fall flat.  Of course, we have long championed the need to engage consumers – this article gets close when it says “…onsumers might start […]

Read more »



Utilities In The Dark Over Customer Engagement?

A triumvirate of articles all focused on “how can utilities get customers engaged with the smart grid?”  I’ll highlight the noticeable sections of each below, but doesn’t it strike readers that this question is posed backwards?  Rather than having utilities determine how to “engage” customers with the smart grid, perhaps giving customers a reason to […]

Read more »



Making Every Drop Count: Utilities Get Wise To Potential of Smart Meters and Smart Grids

Courtesy of The Economist, a look at utilities’ efforts to turn their “dumb” infrastructures into something more like a central nervous system: “…LONDON’S streets can be a bit of a maze, but below ground things are even more complex. Water pipes crisscross the city in all directions. Some areas used to have competing water companies, […]

Read more »


  | 
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.