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

Is There a Rooftop Solar Bubble? And Is It About to Burst?

Via Freakonomics, an interesting article on the possibility of a rooftop solar “bubble” forming and the absence of a truly “smart market” for electricity generated by rooftop solar installations.  As the report notes: Rooftop solar in California. (Photo: 4johnny5) Government efforts to boost affordability and expectations of unsustainably high investment returns generated a booming market […]

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Brazil To Launch Environmental Exchange: Precursor To A Smart Market?

As frequent readers know, we have oft discussed the need for smart markets to underlie smart grids and smart meter deployments.  Now, via The Financial Times, we have the hint of a potential smart market – albeit on a corporate vs. individual level and in the carbon space.  But, that said, it is an intriguing […]

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The Graduate (2012): One Word: Data …. Or Two Words: Smart Markets?

Via GigaOm Pro (subscription required), an interesting report on why the future of smart meters is data, not hardware.  To observers of most technology and other sectors (e.g. computers, etc.) this realization of the primacy of software, content, data over hardware has long been understood.  That said, the report is interesting in the comments it […]

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Driving Smart Grid Uptake: Money Talks

Two interesting and contrasting articles looking at the challenges of motivating residential customers to engage and utilize the smart grid.  The first echoes a theme we have long advocated: widespread acceptance of many smart grid applications will depend upon economical incentives.  Smart markets anyone?  The second presents a confusing viewpoint, summarized by Alex Laskey (president […]

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Socialectricity: Can Games and Social Media Help People Change Their Energy Behavior?

Courtesy of ThomasNet News, a look at whether games and social media can help people change their energy behavior: Energy management offers obvious benefits to businesses and organizations, but retail electricity consumers seem harder to engage, even with smart-metering technologies and peak-load pricing incentives penetrating the market. The problem: Saving ten or fifteen dollars on […]

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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.