A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
Archive for April, 2018

The Internet of Things: Systems Pays Users To Consume Less Electricity

Courtesy of WIRED, an interesting look at Ohmconnect: WE ALL KNOW we should use less electricity. It would save us some money each month, and in the long run, it just might save the planet, reducing our collective carbon footprint. But sadly, that’s just not enough incentive for most of us. Ohmconnect hopes to provide more. Launched […]

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How Location-Based Prices and Utility Rewards Could Help California’s Electric Grid

Via The Energy Collective, interesting commentary on the potential of location-based pricing and utility rewards to help grid operators: Distributed energy resources, from rooftop solar panels to smart well-weatherized homes and timed electric vehicle charging, are vital pieces of the clean energy puzzle. Coordinating how and where to encourage them in a way that benefits […]

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California’s Groundwater Rule Could Mean Opportunities, Water Trading

Via Water Deeply, a look at how the Rosedale-Rio Bravo Water Storage District plans to set up procedures for land retirement and water trading with the goal of putting property owners in the driver’s seat on groundwater management: COMMUNITIES ACROSS CALIFORNIA are struggling to comply with the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), the state’s first comprehensive attempt […]

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Using Blockchain To Streamline Transactions Along the Utility Value Chain

Courtesy of McKinsey, a report on how blockchain technology can streamline transactions along the utility value chain via six emerging applications: Bitcoin has attracted wide interest in recent months, but it’s blockchain—the technology that underpins bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—that has the potential to remake important aspects of the utility industry. Leading utilities have begun to ask […]

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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.