Part 2: Your nominations are in – smart grid companies to watch in 2011

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We’re now on Day 2 of our look at the smart grid companies readers nominated as ones to watch in 2011. (If you missed the first installment, it's linked below.)

Here’s how this works: Our team reviewed all the nominations and did a preliminary sort. Posted below is the second set of smart grid companies that made the cut; we’ll run the remaining ones in the days ahead so be sure to check back. Also, what you 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 do that but in this case, we wanted you to see what readers said themselves. 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 is the second set of nominees in random order:

Demand Energy Networks has developed the only truly grid friendly storage and regeneration system available today. The deployment at scale of this storage solution to firm up renewable resources is amazingly simple, requiring minimal technical review and no annual testing for "anti-islanding" - the system simply cannot be "islanded."

Xtreme Power is poised to take 2011 by storm. 2010 proved a pivotal year for the utility-scale power management and energy storage system provider. In July it closed a $29.5M financing round, and less than a month later announced that it was selected as the sole energy storage provider for Tres Amigas Super Station, the ambitious and game-changing project to establish the country's first renewable energy transmission hub.

[Note from Jesse: Could this be the year that distributed grid-scale storage makes a breakthrough? If so, Demand Energy and Xtreme Power could be among the front runners.]

Energy Control Inc. This technology company has been prominent in smart grid since its inception. Jack McGowan, its President, was a founding member of the GridWise Architecture Council. The company was acquired in December by OpTerra Energy Group, as part of a nationally scaled, best-in-class energy service company (ESCO). The next frontier for energy services is smart grid and the bundle of solutions will combine tradition efficiency projects with demand response, microgrid and smart grid technologies.

[Note from Jesse: I’ve long been puzzled by energy services companies (ESCOs). The sector has numerous regional players but no national brands, despite several attempts at rollups. Now OpTerra thinks it can go nationwide. The twist: They’re not just performing energy audits and swapping out light bulbs. They’ve also added revenue streams from demand response and on-site generation. One hurdle for the OpTerras of the world: Demand response companies such as EnerNOC and Comverge have added energy auditing and efficiency over the past few years. If they get better at tapping into building automation, they could take business away from the “traditional” ESCOs.]

Intelen is a very dynamic Athens-based start-up (Red Herring top 100 - 2010) in Web 2.0 Energy ICT / MDM. It will be in Silicon Valley in January 2011, setting up and expanding some very innovative services for Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 (ontology), DSM/DR and various energy social services for utilities and awareness in the smart grid.

[Note from Jesse: Here's a suggestion from out of left field. This may be fun to watch for social reasons. First the social approach to energy services. And also for its own social experiment – trying to graft Silicon Valley upstarts onto Greek roots.]

Ambient has Duke Energy and Con Edison as customers. These two are just the beginning. Ambient's order file is expanding. They saw orders almost double from around 40,000 to over 80,000 units in about four months. Ambient's margins are respectable; their debt is negligible. Management is networked within most of the important trade and government agencies addressing the smart grid industry.

[Note from Jesse: There are several reasons to keep an eye on this company. First, it's one of the smart grid's best comeback stories. After starting as a BPL player and nearly going under, it has slowly and gradually remade itself as a purveyor of grid applications and grid communications. Second, it is rumored to be on the shortlist for some large projects in the U.S. and China.]

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Powerit Solutions continues to embed their smart grid controllers and integrated solutions into the challenging industrial and, now, the more widely participating commercial sites. The horizontal applications of peak demand control, auto-demand response, dynamic pricing and intelligent energy efficiency are driving continued adoption. One of the first companies to apply smartDRAS clients using OpenADR, Powerit is going beyond the hypothetical.

[Note from Jesse: I think the building-to-grid connection will be one of the big themes in 2011. If I'm right, Powerit should be a big beneficiary, since it has already perfected factory-to-grid, freezers-to-grid, process-line-to-grid and other harder challenges.]

Don't miss:

Part 1: Your nominations are in – 2011 smart grid companies to watch

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