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

Will Consumers Get Smart with Smart Meters? Not Until Smart Markets Give Them A Reason…

Courtesy of Triple Pundit, another look at smart meters and whether consumers take advantage of them.  As frequent visitors to this blog know, we believe that smart meters are only going to be effective and utilized widely when there are transactive opportunities users can engage in, namely smart markets.  As the article notes: “…Smart metering, […]

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2010: Year Of The Consumer?

Courtesy of Earth2Tech, an article noting an emerging (and long overdue, in our mind) emphasis on consumers and a forecast that 2010 will see the emergence of the consumer energy management market.  We applaud this trend, but still maintain that consumers will want a transactive opportunity to capitalize on the information that will soon be […]

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Testing The Waters: Will Water Utilities Go With The Flow On Smart Metering?

Via Green Monk, a report asking how long until all devices which consume water have networked flow meters?  According to the article, consumers’ active interest in receiving more information about their energy and water usage and – with the value that this data has – we may see Home Management software that will manage water […]

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Knowledge Is (Less) Power … Unless There Is A Transactive Capability

A trio of interesting articles to review in this post, all pertaining to smart meters and customers interactions with such.  As all three articles note, meters themselves may not change/incent/motivate behavior and, as the first report notes, the information may actually cause people to use more – not less – power.  In that case, information […]

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Smart Meters Do Not Necessarily Beget Smart Markets Or Smart Consumers

Three interesting articles and analyses this week on various aspects of smart meters and the – mostly failed thus far – need/attempt to captivate consumers.  As KnowledgeProblem points out, home energy innovation is still the goal of many, especially the deregulated markets such as Texas where Direct Energy recently introduced a home energy management system: […]

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Smart Grid Market Forecast

Courtesy of Earth2Tech, a forecast from Pike Research that the smart grid market will bring in $200 billion in worldwide investment between 2008 and 2015. Out of that total investment, annual smart grid global revenues will grow to $35 billion in 2013 from about $10 billion in 2009.  As the article notes: “…Pike Research says […]

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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.