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

An Airbnb Or Uber For The Electricity Grid?

Courtesy of the Rocky Mountain Institute, commentary on a smart market variant that considers how distributed energy resources could help prepare to the power sector to evolve in a sharing economy platform: As Thomas Friedman reported in the New York Times, the shared economy is booming, with companies like Uber and Airbnb continuing to disrupt […]

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A Requiem For Today’s Grid

Via Renewable Energy World, an interesting commentary on the future of the electricity grid: People speak reverentially about the electricity grid, and rightly so. The U.S.’ electricity grid is an awesome technical, operational, and public policy accomplishment. Who can deny the matchless service it delivers, occasional weather-related breakdowns notwithstanding? In fact, acts of Mother Nature […]

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Removing Artificial Price Barriers From Electricity Markets

Via The Guardian, a report on Tempus Energy’s mission to remove artificial price barriers from the UK electricity markets, bringing transparency and connecting customers with the cheapest available energy: There can’t be many energy company directors like Sara Bell. In fact I’d bet my breakfast – delicious, despite being served with a side order of […]

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The Great Electric Company Growth Opportunity

Courtesy of the Electric Collective, an interesting commentary on what they call the Great Electric Company Growth opportunity: Energy use in the US can be split into two large (very, very large) pies. One is electricity for use in homes, buildings, and industry, and the other is transportation, which is powered primarily by liquid fuels […]

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Third-Party Financing Was Solar’s Catalyst. Can Energy Efficiency Find the Same Model?

Via Greentech Media, an interesting look at some of new third-party financing models that are emerging for efficiency: Energy efficiency professionals are increasingly looking to the success of third-party financing in the solar industry as a model for attracting large investors and growing deal flow quickly. Is it working? If a new survey of hundreds […]

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Opower: Soon Entering The Community Solar Business?

Via Greentech media, an article on Opower’s plans to help utilities use data from their customers to sell services back to them, perhaps by helping  utilities sell shares in community solar programs and run the billing process.  While the possibility of power companies offering customers an equity stake in solar projects while potentially avoiding net […]

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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.