WASHINGTON - GridPoint, Inc., a provider of intelligent energy management (IEM) products, announced the completion of a $21 million strategic financing, with significant participation from the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) and the execution of an agreement with Goldman Sachs’ wholly-owned subsidiary Cogentrix Energy, Inc., a leading independent power producer, to market an innovative and superior set of demand response and energy conservation solutions to electric utility companies nationwide.
GridPoint products will enable utilities to meet the rising demand for power while lowering costs and curtailing the need to build new power plants, providing significant economic and environmental benefits. For example, during periods of peak demand for electricity, a single utility that has deployed 100,000 GridPoint products across its service territory can draw upon 500 megawatts of stored capacity, equivalent to the amount of electricity generated by an $800 million coal-fired power plant.
GridPoint’s integrated demand response, conservation, and load-shaping solutions will provide utilities the opportunity to create powerful residential and commercial programs that will lower the cost of supplying electricity, reduce consumption, and increase the reliability of the electric grid. GridPoint products are equipped with utility-controlled intelligence to provide advanced power systems management capabilities.
“We look forward to working with Goldman Sachs’ Cogentrix subsidiary to deliver valuable solutions to the utility market,” said Peter L. Corsell, President and CEO of GridPoint. “The combination of Cogentrix’s deep knowledge of the utility industry and GridPoint’s advanced technology will introduce a measure of network elasticity into the electric power grid.”
The solution’s demand-side management capabilities include load control: the ability for utilities to modulate air conditioners, water heaters, and other appliances for those customers who wish to participate in exchange for a reduction in their utility bills. Additionally, unlike any other solution, GridPoint will provide utilities with supply-side management: the ability during peak demand periods to access energy stored at a customer’s site from either batteries or a distributed generation source such as solar panels, wind turbines, or fuel cells.
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