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As you'll see, there are some big players and some little-known startups on the list. This year's nominations came from all quarters – board rooms, government agencies and labs, utilities, marketing folks, and earnest staffers who are proud of the work their companies are involved in. Thanks to everyone for your nominations.
Next Steps
Our team reviewed all the nominations and did a preliminary sort. Posted below is the first set of smart grid companies that made the cut; we’ll run the remaining ones over the next few days so be sure to check back. Also, what you'll see below are abbreviated versions of the text provided by the person who nominated the company; we have not verified the information for accuracy. Typically we would, but in this case we wanted you to see what the reader said. And you'll see I've added my own comments – and of course we encourage you to add yours using the Talk Back comment form below.
After we're done running all the 2011 contenders, you will have a chance to vote for the finalists.
Here are the first nominations, selected randomly:
Airspan Networks has been making a splash in the smart grid market. Recently, companies such as EnergyAustralia and SAG in Europe have selected the Airspan 4G smart grid solution for their networks. In the United States, Airspan received exclusive rights to market 1.4 GHz licensed spectrum enabling utilities to operate private, secure smart grid networks. [Note from Jesse: Might be smart to monitor things in Europe and Australasia. If licensed spectrum becomes a preferred choice there, this company will have a head start.]
Blue Pillar has developed and commercially deployed an innovative set of applications that allows owners of large, complex "campus" energy facilities to manage assets – distributed generation, cogeneration, chillers, etc - on a proactive and dynamic portfolio basis … Blue Pillar is focused on the end use customer first – not the utility. This may seem counterintuitive with respect to nominating a “smart grid company to watch”. However, at the end of the day, the success of all energy efficiency and DR programs require a strong customer value proposition.
BuildingIQ – Australian-based energy management software company BuildingIQ had a benchmark year in 2010. BuildingIQ launched its Predictive Energy Optimization solution for commercial buildings – the first solution to optimize energy cost and consumption based on weather forecasts, utility rates and the building’s own thermal characteristics. BuildingIQ also completed the world’s first optimized demand response pilot with the launch of its DRIQ product at Australia’s historic Perth Council House. BuildingIQ is now establishing pilots of its Predictive Energy Optimization and DRIQ solutions with commercial building owners, utilities, and DR service providers across the country.
Calico Energy – Washington state-based Calico Energy is the first provider to help a utility company automate the collection and submission of commercial building usage data to the EPA's ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager. The utility, ComEd, which serves more than 350,000 businesses, has reduced the time required to set up each building from 10-12 days to just 24 hours. For its efforts, the Association of Energy Services Professionals (AESP) awarded ComEd its Outstanding Achievement in Energy Program Design or Implementation award in February 2010. [Note from Jesse: Blue Pillar, Building IQ and Calico may benefit from the move toward aggregating buildings and campuses to let them a) share resources and b) aggregate power use to get better rates. Building efficiency is a revenue stream. Demand response another. Net metering (selling excess solar power back to the grid, for instance) is yet another. Add them together and manage it with a single program and you have something worthwhile.]
Electranetics, Inc ("EI") is a technology company providing innovative platform solutions in the clean tech and health sciences sectors, including multiple smart grid and remote medical monitoring solutions. The company holds its own portfolio of patents issued and patents-pending. EI's WattBoss™ Energy Control Platform provides a quantum shift in the consumer vs. utility dynamic by enabling consumers to transform how they consume and save electricity. WattBoss is the lowest cost, most complete hardware and software solution for home energy management, and smart grid integration. [Note from Jesse: On paper Electranetics sounds like a great solution. So do the similar and competing systems from the dozens of other players in the home energy management space. I feel confident that many of them have fine technology. What I haven’t figured out yet is which company will manage to separate itself from the very large pack.]
EMC/RSA has the potential to make the Cloud a key component for smart grid deployments, especially for utilities smaller than the top 50. It can be a host for a variety of key SG applications, including billing and data federation. [Note from Jesse: Cloud computing and outsourcing will continue to get more scrutiny. Utilities are coming to realize that the smart grid is as much about IT as it is about grid operations. And to realize that they don’t have the in-house IT resources to keep up with it all, unless they are one of the giants. I’m not convinced that 2011 is the year that cloud computing goes mainstream for utilities, but the topic is definitely heating up.]
Thoughts on these companies? Use the Talk Back comment form to share. And be sure to stay tuned next week for more of your 2011 company to watch nominees.
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