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

Building a Power Grid to Span the World

Via the Wall Street Journal, an interesting look at the potential of transnational super grids—the vision of globe-girdling power networks that could ship electricity, particularly renewable energy, from areas where it can be produced in abundance to wherever it is needed—across continents, weather systems and oceans A line to share solar power between the deserts […]

Read more »



Can EVs Power The Grid?

Via 3bl Media, a look at whether EVs can power the grid: By 2030, up to half of new electric vehicles could be capable of charging their batteries while they’re plugged in and discharging electricity stored in their batteries back onto the power grid. This “bidirectional” capability opens up the possibility that EV owners could […]

Read more »



Water As an Asset Class Is Here

Via Project Syndicate,  commentary on how the technology and infrastructure for creating an integrated global market in water and water rights is advancing quickly, with promising new ventures entering the market: Just over a decade ago, I predicted the arrival of water as an asset class. I foresaw “a massive expansion of investment in the water sector, including […]

Read more »



Elon Musk Is Officially in the Texas Electricity Business

Via Gizmodo, an article on Elon Musk’s new venture: selling electricity in the Lone Star State: Noted tax-lover Elon Musk is the latest entrant in Texas’ Wild West energy market. The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is now officially licensed to sell electricity to retail customers in the state through a company called Tesla Energy Ventures. Musk filed […]

Read more »



Economics, Markets, and Water

Via the Yale Economic Growth Center, an article looking at the complex economic history of water distribution and law in southern Spain, although – in my view – the piece’s framework should not have been set up as “water markets versus quotas” as the reality is not ‘either/or’ but ‘both/and’: Auction-based water markets, which distribute the greatest amount […]

Read more »



Tesla’s Texas Electricity Retail Venture Leans On Battery Storage Experience

Via Energy Storage, a report on Tesla’s planned retail electricity ambitions: Tesla’s planned launch of a retail electricity offering to existing customers within the ERCOT service area in Texas will lean heavily on battery storage as well as solar for its expertise, assets and routes to market.  Newly-created subsidiary Tesla Energy Ventures filed an application in mid-August […]

Read more »


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.