Can Transactive Energy Improve Grid Resilience?

I just read an interesting article about how transactive energy might be the golden ticket for improving power grid resilience.  The concept is currently being studied by researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) – the researchers are looking at transactive energy in the context of self-healing grid technologies.  But what exactly is it?

Transactive Energy 101

Simply put, transactive energy involves reducing loads and shifting demand peaks by encouraging customers to execute automatic, rapid, and informed transactions with other homes and businesses in order to balance distributed energy resources from multiple sources.

Basically, the technique incentivizes customers to engage in activities that shift load to where it’s needed the most.  It requires systemic coordination between electricity suppliers, customers, smart appliances, and delivery platforms, so that each link in the chain can “talk” to one another and negotiate procurement and consumption levels, cost, timing, and delivery guidelines to optimize grid efficiency for all parties.

To accomplish this, the PNNL researchers are working on an algorithm that will serve as the lifeblood of the system.  Click on the article I linked to above for all the technical details if you’re so inclined.  From a layperson’s perspective, the concept is really about maximizing optionality and flexibility by enabling smaller-scale, more granular load adjustments.  It’s like customization for energy usage.

Personally, I can’t tell if a transactive energy “marketplace” will be the key to the energy industry’s future, but I like the fact that some very smart people are looking into it.  It makes sense, given that energy sources are becoming more and more diverse and distributed, not to mention the fact that everyone wants better reliability, from customers to energy suppliers.

And of course, anything that can improve grid reliability can only benefit the emergency preparedness field.  And even if that were the only benefit, I’d still say bring it on!