Trilliant Steps Forward as Serious Player
By Jesse Berst
Mar 31, 2009 - 8:46:05 PM

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SGN’s Vendor Watch articles evaluate leading Smart Grid suppliers, assessing their long-term prospects and viability.

 

As the Smart Grid enters the “traction” phase, vendors must perfect a new set of skills. They must rely less on press releases and pilot wins and more on execution and customer support. This is precisely the time when some of the “tortoises” start to catch up to the early “hares.” And when the entrepreneurs who started companies often turn them over to professional managers to get to the next level.

 

Trilliant is one of the sector’s underappreciated dark horses (or should I say dark tortoises?). I predict that Trilliant will emerge over the next couple of years as one of the top three Smart Grid communications companies. After that... all bets are off until we have more clarity about how hard the big telcos such as Verizon and AT&T will storm this sector.

 

I’ve been watching Trilliant Incorporated for some time. In the past nine months, I’ve spent time chatting with founder Bill Vogel, VP Marketing Paul Karr, Chief Solutions Officer Eric Miller, and with many of Trilliant’s clients, partners and competitors. I’ve watched as Trilliant has quietly amassed deployment wins and in-the-field experience.

 

I like what I see. For instance, I share the management team’s view of where the market is going.  Trilliant believes smart meters are just one aspect of the Smart Grid. The big play is to create the enabling infrastructure for renewables, efficiency, electric vehicles, and much more, a communications platform on which utilities can layer more and more valuable applications.

 

Until recently, the company has been relatively quiet. Now it is ramping up to make a serious charge. It secured a round of funding last summer to permit more rapid expansion; it has just brought on a new CEO with heavyweight credentials; and it is (finally) launching a serious marketing effort.

 

Current Status

Trilliant provides the wireless communications backbone for smart metering and other Smart Grid applications. Competitors include Silver Spring Networks, Arcadian Networks, and SmartSynch. Though most people refer to Trilliant as a startup (me included), it is actually an amalgamation and relaunch of companies that started 80s and 90s.

 

In March, Trilliant founder Bill Vogel became senior VP of strategic development to make room for new CEO Andy White, formerly head of GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy. Chief Solutions Officer Eric Miller is from Itron where he oversaw the meter maker’s software business. He also spent time at Mohr Davidow, a leading Silicon Valley venture firm.

 

Core Offerings

Trilliant makes wireless communications networks. Unlike those vendors that focus only on the communications itself, Trilliant aims to – in the words of founder Bill Vogel – “bring all the networking solutions together.” Its offerings include:

·       A wireless, radio frequency mesh network operating system

·       Communications chips to enable most popular brands of smart meters to communicate with the mesh network

·       A gateway for collecting data from groups of meters

·       Network management tools

·       Remote control tools for demand response, load control and distribution monitoring

As we go forward, we’ll hear more from Trilliant about the solutions it can build for utilities on top of this basic platform. As Eric Miller puts it, the company is building a “utility-focused environment for energy efficiency and demand response.”

 

Key Differentiators

Founder Bill Vogel says Trilliant “connects more dots” than the competition. The Trilliant platform can integrate not just smart meters, but also in-home displays, thermostats, load control devices, and more. Watch for some demand response announcements soon.

 

Trilliant has gone further and faster down the open standards path. As SGN contributor Erich Gunther noted in his September Tech Take review, Trilliant was one of the first vendors to use commodity IEEE 802.15.4 for its physical equipment. (802.15.4 is the basis for ZigBee and several other specifications for personal- or home-area-networks.) A recent Greentech Media story sheds further light on the standards argument that is now under way. (See links below.)

 

Trilliant’s biggest win to date was its 2006 deal with Ontario’s Hydro One. As of December, 2008, the Trilliant solution was providing the communications for more than 700,000 meters (from three different manufacturers). But its most strategic victory may have been its July, 2007, deal with Louisville Gas and Electric (a subsidiary of E.ON U.S.) That trial included smart meters, home-area-network devices, and demand response applications. This successful pilot has validated Trilliant’s concept of a “unified network” and verified Trilliant’s ability to be device agnostic.

 

Trilliant Strengths

We are now entering the deployment phase, where success will be measured by the ability to rapidly roll out large systems.  In that regard, Trilliant is further along than many of its competitors.  Thanks to its Hydro One account, it has more two-way endpoints in the field than its competitors – more than 1 million and climbing.

 

Trilliant is stronger financially than many startups. It passed the $100 million mark in revenue in 2008. In August of that same year, it closed a $40 million round of venture financing from a group that has provided not just money, but also an insistence that Trilliant become more professional and more visible. Trilliant used that money to expand its footprint geographically, and to expand its technology to create a true end-to-end solution.

 

Another important and often overlooked Trilliant strength comes from its tools. For instance, most meter vendors use Trilliant’s Table TstBench software to produce and test prototypes. Likewise, many firms use Trilliant’s ProVisor and ProCare software to help with the field aspects of meter installation and maintenance. These tools are not big revenue generators, but they embed Trilliant deeply into the industry and into the standards process, giving the firm early insights on trends and changes.

 

Trilliant Challenges

Until recently, Trilliant’s chief weakness was its marketing. It allowed competitors to win the mind share war. As a result, Trilliant is not always on the “short list” when utilities start talking to vendors. It is now working hard to catch up. In a related area, Trilliant has not been as good as others at partnering to co-bid big projects.

 

We think Trilliant (and all of its competitors) will be challenged by the battle to become the standard utility platform for integrating and managing distributed resources.  It’s too early to say if Trilliant understands this game. For instance, the company seems uncertain whether or not to publish its APIs (application programming interfaces) to make it easy for others to build applications that run on top of its platform. If you don’t understand what I’m implying, then ask yourself this. Was it a good idea for Apple to open the iPhone to outside applications? Or would it have been better off with a closed platform, with applications only from itself and a few select partners?

 

The company is also weak overseas. Although it has been somewhat active in the UK, it is still figuring out how and when to attack nascent markets in Europe, South Africa, and the Middle East.

 

Trilliant and its competitors will soon have to contend with the major telecommunications companies. Until now, companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Hughes Satellite, Cisco, and others have been lackadaisical about the Smart Grid market, but they now have it in their sights. Trilliant will be competing not with other startups, but with massive organizations that can offer carrier-grade networking operating systems, billing, and customer support.

 

Finally, I continue to think that virtually every Smart Grid communications company is underestimating WiMax and its potential as a disruptive technology. For their sakes, I hope they are working very hard in their labs right now to ensure they can make a quick and easy migration to WiMax no later than mid-2010.

 

Opportunities

If Trilliant really can create a more comprehensive solution, then it will have a sales advantage in those areas that understand the Smart Grid is more than just smart meters. To the extent that a utility (or a government) is also interested in distribution automation, energy efficiency, demand response and reduced carbon emissions, Trilliant could position itself as an expandable platform that makes all of those things possible. To do that, it will have to build more applications on top of its basic platform. More importantly, it will have to open that platform up and give other companies opportunities and incentives to build Trilliant-compliant solutions.

 

I don’t think Trilliant or any other small firm will dominate the communications sector – especially now that the big telcos are finally getting serious about the space. But unless I’m missing something, Trilliant will be one of the companies every utility talks to before making its final communications choice.

 

   SGN Tech Take review of Trilliant’s SecureMesh

   Greentech Media coverage of communications standards controversies

   Greentech Media’s analysis of Trilliant’s new CEO

   Trilliant home page

   Trilliant case study of its Hydro One network (PDF)

 

 

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