A smart grid is a transactive grid.
- Lynne Kiesling
Author Archive

Will Water Pricing Be The Next Carbon Pricing?

Via Greenbiz, an article on whether water pricing will be the next carbon pricing: The price of water — essential for human life, nature, communities and businesses — is often subsidized, reflecting a commonly held belief that everyone should have abundant access to clean water. But in many locations, those prices don’t reflect the true cost of […]

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Tesla’s Large Scale Battery Projects Are Transforming The Grid

Via Quartz, an article on how Tesla’s large scale battery projects are transforming the grid: In 2019, Tesla introduced the Megapack, a battery the size of a shipping container designed to kill coal- and gas-fired “peaker” power plants. Peaker plants sit idle for most of the day, but fire up to provide extra energy whenever demand for […]

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Car Charges House

Via Ars Technica, an article on Toyota’s plans to offer a lithium-ion home battery system your car can charge: Toyota’s new home storage system will let an EV power a house. The Toyota Motor Corporation has decided to get into the home battery sector. Earlier this month, the automaker announced its O-Uchi Kyuden System, a home […]

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How San Diego Secured Its Water Supply: At A Cost

Via AP News, a reminder of the power of pricing to manage behavior toward, and usage of, water: As a worsening drought forces millions of Californians to face mandatory water restrictions, one corner of Southern California has largely shielded itself from supply-related woes: San Diego County. For Western water planners, the path it took to get there […]

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What Makes Transmission So Difficult (and Vital)?

Via Clean Energy Finance Forum, a report on what makes for fights, innovation, and progress in the work of carrying clean electricity across the continent: For all the calls to increase solar and wind generation, do people know the importance of transmission in our ability to actually use it? The climate-driven need to make power from […]

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Car Dealerships: Prime Candidates For Microgrids

Via Microgrid Knowledge, a look at how – as electrification grows – car dealerships become prime candidates for microgrids: US car dealerships are finding they need to upgrade their electrical infrastructure — and fast — given that more than half of their sales are expected to come from electric vehicles (EVs) before the decade is […]

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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.