The increased penetration of uncertain and variable renewable energy presentsvarious resource and operational electric grid challenges. Micro-level(household and small commercial) demand-side grid flexibility could be acost-effective strategy to integrate high penetrations of wind and solarenergy, but literature and field deployments exploring the necessaryinformation and communication technologies (ICTs) are scant. This paperpresents an exploratory framework for enabling information driven gridflexibility through the Internet of Things (IoT), and a proof-of-conceptwireless sensor gateway (FlexBox) to collect the necessary parameters foradequately monitoring and actuating the micro-level demand-side. In the summerof 2015, thirty sensor gateways were deployed in the city of Managua(Nicaragua) to develop a baseline for a near future small-scale demand responsepilot implementation. FlexBox field data has begun shedding light onrelationships between ambient temperature and load energy consumption, load andbuilding envelope energy efficiency challenges, latency communication networkchallenges, and opportunities to engage existing demand-side user behavioralpatterns. Information driven grid flexibility strategies present greatopportunity to develop new technologies, system architectures, andimplementation approaches that can easily scale across regions, incomes, andlevels of development.
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