A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
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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Can Cap & Trade Incentivize Community Water Accountability?

Via Stanford’s Engineering Department, an article on some research that – taking a page from energy and climate playbooks – explores a cap-and-trade system and whether it could incentivize community accountability: California has struggled with drought for most of the last decade. From 2011-2015, the state experienced the driest four-year stretch in recorded history, leading to […]

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Cap and Trade For Water Conservation

Via Water Deeply, an interesting look at the potential for use of a cap-and-trade system for water conservation: CAP-AND-TRADE SYSTEMS ARE most notably used for controlling pollution, particularly related to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. The idea has never yet been implemented when it comes to water conservation. But that could change. Cap-and-trade refers to a […]

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A Market Solution to Texas’ Groundwater Woes?

Via Marfa Public Radio, a report on use of markets to manage groundwater uses in Texas: Fracking has dramatically increased the demand for water in the nation’s most productive oil field, Texas’ Permian Basin. Water usage has already risen sixfold since 2011, and according to research firm IHS Markit, demand will double again by the end of […]

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Why is Willingness to Pay for Water Surprisingly Low in Urban Jordan?

Via Water Policy Online, an interesting report on a surprising tendency for people in Jordan to place a low monetary value on a reliable supply of water: Willingness to pay for a reliable supply of water among urban households in Jordan—one of the most water-scarce places on the planet- seems surprisingly low. What are the […]

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Blockchain Automation In Peer-To-Peer Energy Trading and Dispatch

Via Greenbiz, an interesting look at how blockchain automation in peer-to-peer energy trading and dispatch will transform the sector: Ron Pernick: Blockchain seems to be everywhere these days. Not only is it the basis for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, it’s now being touted as the next big thing in peer-to-peer transactions for shopping, government services and […]

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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.