Taming the wild edge of smart grid – Lessons from transactive energy market deployments

For two decades, transactive energy practitioners have been gaining experience with using market-based approaches to coordinate the flexible operation of customer electric assets. While the benefits anticipated from this distributed decision-making approach have been well explored, the practical aspects of implementing such systems and their suitability addressing real-world problems are just beginning to emerge. This report surveys 24 field-deployment programs and offers observations from interviews with experts instrumental in these deployments. The results of the survey and interviews reveal the diversity of designs and applications. They highlight the technical promise of the approaches as well as challenges with system integration, sustainable business strategy, and regulatory policy obstacles. Insights from the survey offer considerations to direct future effort and investment.