Keep up with the innovative tech transforming business
Tech Brew keeps business leaders up-to-date on the latest innovations, automation advances, policy shifts, and more, so they can make informed decisions about tech.
Supporting the electrical grid is a team effort, and a new certification body called the Mercury Consortium aims to help low-carbon technologies become better collaborators—or, should we say, interoperators?
Spearheaded by software platform Kraken, the Mercury Consortium is a group of more than 30 utility providers, manufacturers, and tech companies that are working together to standardize how low-carbon technologies like solar panels, smart thermostats, heat pumps, and residential batteries connect to the grid—while also ensuring its energy efficiency and resiliency.
Devrim Celal, Kraken’s chief marketing and flexibility officer, also told Tech Brew that the consortium isn’t just hoping to solve a current problem; it’s hoping to avoid one in the future, too. Because the number of low-carbon technologies consumers buy is only expected to increase, the grid will be overburdened unless the tech can work together rather than compete for power.
“We’ve got 40 million [low-carbon] devices today. We’re going to have 200 million by the end of this decade,” Celal said. “Unless we’ve solved this problem soon, that 200 million device problem would require us to upgrade the network so much—we can’t do it. There isn’t enough capital.”
The consortium’s inspiration was Bluetooth, which allows mobile devices from different manufacturers to connect to each other. But devices that have the Mercury Consortium logo won’t connect to each other—they’ll all connect to the grid in a standardized way.
That involves demand response programs, or regulating how much energy is supplied when the grid is experiencing peak demand. Devices approved by the consortium won’t overburden the grid when it is already experiencing maximum demand.
“We will set tests and say, ‘These are what [Mercury] devices should be able to do.’ We’ll test them. If they pass, they get to carry the Mercury logo,” Celal said.
The first device to don the Mercury logo is expected to be unveiled in March.