About the Mercury Consortium
The Mercury Consortium is a global, collaborative, nonprofit industry organization focused on making energy flexibility work at scale. Across energy systems worldwide, flexibility has the potential to support resilience, sustainability, and affordability—but only if devices can work reliably together across markets and regions.
Formed as an independent 501(c)(6) organization, Mercury was initiated by Kraken and EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) in 2024 and incorporated in 2025. The consortium brings together electric utilities, technology providers, manufacturers, and trade associations to advance grid edge functionality, expand customer choice, and support energy affordability.
Mercury was created to address a practical challenge facing the energy industry today: flexible, grid connected devices are increasingly common, but they do not yet work together consistently and reliably across utilities, markets, and regions.
The Challenge
Flexible devices ( electric vehicle chargers, batteries, and electric heating) can respond to grid conditions and participate in energy flexibility programs. In practice, however, devices often behave differently depending on where they are deployed, how they are integrated, and which systems they connect to. Manufacturers, utilities, and technology providers frequently face a fragmented
landscape, where:
– Device behavior is defined inconsistently
– Integrations must be repeated across markets
– Flexibility works in some places, but not others
This lack of consistency makes flexibility harder to deploy, more expensive to maintain, and difficult to scale.
What Mercury Does
Mercury provides a neutral, industry led forum where stakeholders work together to define clear, practical interoperability requirements for flexible, grid connected devices, known as Distributed Energy Resources (DERs).
These requirements support the Mercury Certification Mark, which helps indicate that devices are ready to participate in energy flexibility programs in a consistent and predictable way.
Rather than replacing existing standards, Mercury builds on established, widely used protocols, clarifying how devices should behave so that they can work reliably with utilities and flexibility providers. This approach helps reduce complexity for manufacturers, improve operational confidence for utilities, and support broader adoption across markets.
A Global Perspective
Mercury takes a global first approach. While energy systems differ by region, many of the challenges associated with device interoperability and flexibility are shared. Devices are designed, manufactured, and deployed internationally, and fragmented approaches increase cost and complexity across the ecosystem.
By bringing together utilities, manufacturers, technology providers, and public sector stakeholders, Mercury ensures its work reflects real operational needs and can be applied across regions.
Working Together
Mercury operates through member-driven working groups. Participants contribute technical expertise, operational insight, and market perspective to help shape requirements that are practical and relevant.
Progress depends on collaboration. Mercury’s work is shaped by the organizations that build, operate, and rely on flexible devices, with the goal of creating a more consistent foundation for energy flexibility.
Through this collective effort, Mercury supports a more resilient and adaptable energy system—one that can evolve through global collaboration rather than fragmented, market-by-market solutions.