2.1. Goals

Assumption: A smart grid consumer wants to schedule consumption of grid capacity to meet needs while minimizing cost or total energy use.

Assumption: A smart grid supplier wants to schedule the available supply of grid capacity to meet consumer demand while minimizing outages and unused capacity.

To achieve the goals above, consumers and suppliers must be able to do different but related activities:

Consumer	Supplier
Anticipate demand	Communicate future anticipated demand.	Determine how much capacity consumers will demand at some point in the future.
Anticipate capacity	Determine available capacity and its cost now and in the future.	Communicate available capacity and its cost now or in the future.
Sell capacity	Purchase a portion of grid capacity from a supplier (or another consumer) in advance.	Sell a portion of grid capacity in advance.
Re-sell or buy back capacity	Sell back, re-sell, or give up rights to grid capacity.	Buy back grid capacity from consumers.
Avoid outages	Gracefully adjust when less capacity is available than it needs.	Force consumers at times to use less capacity to avoid outages.