Background of The Lab

Transactive energy is smart energy. Transactive integration is low cost and easy to install; new systems can be introduced with minimal configuration. Transactive integration will enable you to bring home new technology from the store in the morning, and have it fully integrated into the transactive market of your home or business in the afternoon. Transactive agents respond to the needs of their owners without constant intervention.

Local transactive energy markets produce optimal loads. Load spikes are locally expensive. Load troughs are economic opportunities to be seized. Futures markets create accurate projections. Storage systems play the markets to smooth loads. A node that is self-managed by a local transactive market is a node that is already optimized for interacting with smart grids. A node that is self-managed by a local transactive market is ready for OpenADR.

Each smart energy system must bridge between its own internal complexity and the other systems in the home and building. The developer of a smart energy system must program for both the systems internal controls and for the integration interactions. A great programmer of deterministic controls may not be a great programmer of market interactions. The OASIS specifications for energy markets may be unfamiliar to the innovating engineer. Every expectation of proper market behavior, of fault detection and recovery, of negotiations and of futures must be included in in every smart system.

To meet our energy goals for cheap distributed energy, it must be easier to bring new technology to market. Consumers must be able to make their own choices that support themselves, their families, and their own values. Above all, it must be simple to integrate new systems that provide, use, store, or manage energy into the home or business.

Our founders have been leaders in smart energy, in energy-aware agents, and in enterprise communications with engineered systems for more than a decade. We wrote the book on energy communication standards. Now we are putting what we know to work with smart, energy-aware agents to operate the systems in our lives.