A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
Archive for November, 2011

What’s On Your Bill: What Utilities Don’t Tell You

Via the American Council For Energy Efficiency, a very interesting article analyzing what’s on the bills that electric utilities send to their customers.  As the report notes, it may be wise – before we jump into discussion of smart meters, smart grids, etc. – for utilities to perhaps start including some basic data to make […]

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Weakness of Social Comparison Messages: “Oh No, Opower”

A very interesting National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper was published recently, titled USING NON-PECUNIARY STRATEGIES TO INFLUENCE BEHAVIOR: EVIDENCE FROM A LARGE SCALE FIELD EXPERIMENT, which  investigated the effectiveness of policy measures based on information transfers and pro-social messages in a large-scale, natural field experiment carried out in conjunction with Cobb County, […]

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Americans Not Making Great Progress on Home Energy Efficiency Improvements: Monthly Bills Would Need To Increase > $100 Before Changing Behavior

Via Treehugger, an interesting report on how Americans are not making great progress on home energy efficiency improvements.  As frequent visitors to this blog know, we believe that this has everything to do with motivation and incentive, namely the opportunity to utilize a transactive grid to turn behavioral changes into real currency versus simply providing […]

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The Electric Utility’s Consumption Conundrum

Via Smart Grid Library, an interesting article on paradox of conservation and the drive for utilities to adopt new business models.  As the report notes: Every business wants to grow the sales of their product or service – telecom carriers want you to consume more minutes of smart phone use, restaurants want you to eat […]

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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.