A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
Archive for April, 2023

Hug Pylons, Not Trees

Via The Economist, an interesting article examining the idea that economic growth should help – not hinder – the fight against climate change: The sheer majesty of a five-megawatt wind turbine, its central support the height of a skyscraper, its airliner-wingspan rotors tilling the sky, is hard to deny. The solid-state remorselessness with which a […]

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Here Come The Power Lines

Via HeatMap, some optimism that America is quietly making progress on one of the biggest challenges to the renewable energy rollout: New England is about to get a big infusion of carbon-free energy. On Thursday, a Maine jury ruled that a 145-mile power line connecting hydroelectric dams in Canada with the New England grid via […]

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The U.S. Is Laying New Power Lines Too Slowly For Its Renewables Transition

Via Quartz, an article on how growth in US power transmission lines has dropped from an already meager 1.5% to 1% over the last five years: Renewables are having a bumper run, according to JP Morgan’s annual assessment (pdf) of the energy market. More money is being invested into clean tech than fossil fuels—and this was true […]

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The U.S. Has Billions for Wind and Solar Projects. Good Luck Plugging Them In.

Courtesy of the New York Times, a look at how the explosion in proposed clean energy ventures has overwhelmed the system for connecting new power sources to homes and businesses: Plans to install 3,000 acres of solar panels in Kentucky and Virginia are delayed for years. Wind farms in Minnesota and North Dakota have been abruptly […]

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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.