A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
U.S. Virtual Power Plants Expected To Proliferate

Via UtilityDive, a look at how battery storage and smart appliances make virtual power plants an increasingly viable option to address the intermittency of renewable energy: As an increasing supply of renewable energy resources requires greater reliability and resiliency for the power grid, virtual power plants are emerging as one way to ensure the supply […]

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Bi-Directional Charging: Putting Gridlock In Rearview Mirror?

Via The Atlantic, a look at the power grid in an era of growing electricity consumption: Every Texan I know has what you might call “grid anxiety,” a low-humming preoccupation with electricity that emerged after brutal winter storms kneecapped the state’s isolated power grid in February 2021. That frigid disaster triggered highway pileups and runs on grocery […]

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Why Aren’t Texans Paid to help Prevent Blackouts During Heat Waves?

Via Canary Media, commentary on why – as Texas endures another bout of extreme heat – more incentives are not offered to recruit residents to help ease demand on the stressed grid:   In Texas, record-setting heat is causing record-setting electricity demand, as power-hungry air conditioners become essential to daily life. Though wind and solar power are helping to keep […]

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Tesla Alum Aims To Build The Power Company Of The Future

Via Canary Media, a report on Equilibrium Energy which is live in Texas with an offering to rent grid batteries and make money with them in the ERCOT markets: It is a truth universally acknowledged that an electrical grid in possession of rapidly growing renewable capacity must be in want of energy storage. Climatetech entrepreneur Ryan Hanley aims to […]

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Why The Electric Vehicle Boom Could Out A Major Strain On The U.S. Power Grid

Via CNBC, a look at how the EV boom could put a major strain on power grids: Over half of all new cars sold in the U.S. by 2030 are expected to be electric vehicles. That could put a major strain on our nation’s electric grid, an aging system built for a world that runs on […]

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The Best Part of an EV Is When You’re Not Driving

Via HeatMap, a look at how the enormous battery in an EV can do a lot more than propel your car down the road: Many new cars and trucks come with modes to optimize driving. Anyone who’s watched an episode of Top Gear has seen the hosts extoll the virtues of sport mode, which makes steering tighter […]

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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.