A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
Archive for March, 2010

Smart Meters and Pricing: A Looming Battle?

Courtesy of Earth2Tech, an interesting article on the looming battle in California over smart meters and energy prices. Google says the state should require its big utilities to give near real-time pricing information to every smart meter-enabled customer by the end of next year. California’s big three utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California […]

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A “Swift Kick In The Apps…”

Courtesy of The Smart Grid News, an interesting look at Intel’s newly released Intelligent Home Energy Management software and some speculation that perhaps Intel is joining Smart Grid latecomers Google, Microsoft, Apple and Cisco in a bid to dominate the market or even to make utilities obsolete. More importantly, however, is the author’s impassioned plea […]

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“Smart” Customers: Active Partners In Managing Energy Consumption & Cost

Courtesy of Earth2Tech, an interesting report on the fact that utility customers of the future – enabled by smart meters, grids, and especially markets –  will “…no longer be a passive recipient of a bill, but an active partner in managing energy consumption and cost.”  However, given the poor results of early smart meter deployments, […]

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Energy Equity And A Smart Market

Via Smart Grid News, a report on whether the future vision of electrical energy – the Smart Grid – introduce issues of Energy Equity unseen in today’s utility-based society.  We note this article as it – again – indicates the coming importance of imparting “ownership” of these heretofore hard to capture resources (i.e. water molecules […]

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Open Your APIs and Embrace The Customer!

A number of recent articles and initiatives that – thankfully – put the focus back on consumers as critical actors in the evolution of the smart meter-smart grid-smart market ecosystem.  First, courtesy of Earth2Tech, a report that Google has released the API (application programming interface) for its energy tool PowerMeter. As the article notes: “…Opening […]

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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.