  The increased penetration of uncertain and variable renewable energy presents
various resource and operational electric grid challenges. Micro-level
(household and small commercial) demand-side grid flexibility could be a
cost-effective strategy to integrate high penetrations of wind and solar
energy, but literature and field deployments exploring the necessary
information and communication technologies (ICTs) are scant. This paper
presents an exploratory framework for enabling information driven grid
flexibility through the Internet of Things (IoT), and a proof-of-concept
wireless sensor gateway (FlexBox) to collect the necessary parameters for
adequately monitoring and actuating the micro-level demand-side. In the summer
of 2015, thirty sensor gateways were deployed in the city of Managua
(Nicaragua) to develop a baseline for a near future small-scale demand response
pilot implementation. FlexBox field data has begun shedding light on
relationships between ambient temperature and load energy consumption, load and
building envelope energy efficiency challenges, latency communication network
challenges, and opportunities to engage existing demand-side user behavioral
patterns. Information driven grid flexibility strategies present great
opportunity to develop new technologies, system architectures, and
implementation approaches that can easily scale across regions, incomes, and
levels of development.
