A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
Archive for January, 2024

One Easy Way to Boost the Grid: Upgrade the Power Lines

Via Volts, a very informative podcast featuring a conversation with Jason Huang of TS Conductor and Emilia Chojkiewicz of UC Berkeley around the potential of upgrading the power lines: Upgrading power lines — “reconductoring,” in the biz — is a straightforward way to boost the capacity of the electrical grid by enabling it to transmit more […]

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Four Ways AI is Making the Power Grid Faster and More Resilient

Via MIT Technology Review, a look at how – from predicting EV charge times to pinpointing areas of high wildfire risk – AI is transforming our energy network: The power grid is growing increasingly complex as more renewable energy sources come online. Where once a small number of large power plants supplied most homes at […]

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Unlocking The Grid is Key to Meeting Global Renewable Goal

Via Cipher, commentary on the importance of unlocking the grid in order to allow renewable energy’s full potential: Tripling global renewable energy capacity by decade’s end is possible if all the wind and solar capacity currently languishing in regulatory limbo is hooked up to the power grid, a new International Energy Agency (IEA) report shows. The […]

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Secret To A Renewable Grid Lies In Transcontinental Electricity Trading

Via Anthropocene, a look at how renewable energy can be 100% reliable and economically feasible through transcontinental power pools—no long-term storage required: Sources of renewable energy such as solar and wind power are highly variable, not only over time (the sun doesn’t shine at night) but also in space (some places are just windier than others). […]

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The Power Grid Is Changing. What It Means for Utility Stocks—and Your Electricity Bill.

Via Barron’s, a look at how renewable energy will make life more complicated but could be a boon for the companies providing it: The year is 2051 and newly married, first-time homeowner Olivia is driving to work. (Olivia was one of the most popular baby names in 2020, and she has just turned 31.) She […]

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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.