Saturday, March 29, 2008

GridPoint appoints energy experts to Board of Advisors and raises 15 M$

GridPoint Inc., a leading clean tech company whose smart grid platform benefits electric utilities, consumers and the environment, announced the appointment of new members to its board of advisors, including energy technology pioneer Robert N. Danziger, Chairman of the Midwest ISO Paul J. Feldman, former Deputy Secretary of Energy T.J. Glauthier, former CIA Director R. James Woolsey, and CERA Chairman and Pulitzer Prize winner Daniel Yergin.
GridPoint also announced a strategic investment of $15 million by the Quercus Trust, a prominent investor in alternative energy companies. Since the company's inception in November 2003, GridPoint has raised $102 million in equity capital. GridPoint was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Technology Pioneer 2008 and participated in its annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
"We are honored to welcome advisors of such high caliber," said Peter L. Corsell, President and CEO, GridPoint. "Their insight and counsel will be invaluable as we work to transform the current electric power grid into an intelligent network that drives energy efficiency and accelerates the adoption of renewable energy sources."
Danziger is founder and served as Chairman and CEO of Sunlaw Energy Corporation (1980-2005), an independent energy producer and technology developer that set benchmarks for reliability, profitability and emissions levels. He also co-founded Emerachem, a leading producer of air pollution control catalysts. Danziger worked as a policy analyst, project manager and consultant at California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, focusing on technologies for energy independence and a clean environment including the hybrid car, photovoltaics and alternative fuels. Since 2004 he has lectured at Stanford University on climate change, biofuels, oceanic pollution and emerging solutions, and oil price forecasting. Danziger was an advisor to Google's ReChargeIt electric and hybrid vehicle program and continues to investigate greenhouse gas mitigation strategies that are commercially sustainable.
Feldman is Chairman of the Midwest ISO (Independent Transmission System Operator), which manages energy in 15 Midwestern states and a portion of Canada. After a 20-year career with AT&T, he served as CEO of two large energy companies, founded and sold three new ventures in the energy and technology sector, and assisted Novell in a business turnaround assignment. He currently serves as Chairman of business intelligence firm TrendIQ and CEO of China Energy Partners, a special purpose acquisition corporation focused on energy in China. He recently was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Energy to the National Coal Council. Feldman also sits on several advisory boards of firms involved in energy and technology and is an active angel investor and entrepreneur in the Northern Virginia technology community.
Glauthier served from 1999 to 2001 as Deputy Secretary and COO at the U.S. Department of Energy, where he directed management and policy development. Prior to that, he spent five years at the White House as Associate Director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is former President and CEO of the Electricity Innovation Institute, an affiliate of the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and under his leadership it initiated programs that included modernizing the electricity grid, clean energy resources, advanced coal technologies, and critical infrastructure security. Glauthier also is an advisor to organizations in the energy and clean tech sectors through his firm, TJG Energy Associates, LLC, and through association with Booz Allen Hamilton's global energy practice.
Woolsey has served the U.S. government on five different occasions, most recently as Director of Central Intelligence; he has held Presidential appointments in two Democratic and two Republican administrations. Currently, as a venture partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners of San Bruno, California, he concentrates on clean tech investments, especially renewable energy and energy security. He also is Chairman of the Strategic Advisory Group of Paladin Capital Group, a Senior Executive Advisor to Booz Allen Hamilton, and Of Counsel to Goodwin Procter, having previously practiced law for 22 years with Shea & Gardner of Washington, D.C. He is Chairman of the advisory boards of the Clean Fuels Foundation and the New Uses Council and serves on the National Commission on Energy Policy. In 2003, when he was a Vice President of Booz Allen, Woolsey was named by Consulting magazine to its list of Top 25 Consultants in the U.S.
A highly respected authority on energy, economics and international politics, Yergin plays a leadership role in the global energy industry. He is Chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) and Executive Vice President of IHS. He received the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for the national bestseller The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power and the United States Energy Award for lifelong achievements. Yergin chaired the U.S. Department of Energy's Task Force on Strategic Energy Research and Development. He is a member of the U.S. National Petroleum Council and was vice chair of its new Facing the Hard Truths about Energy study. He is also a board member of the U.S. Energy Association and the U.S.-Russian Business Council.
GridPoint's board of advisors also includes former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley, renowned futurist Esther Dyson, internationally recognized energy and environmental leader David J. Jhirad, and former EPA official and former Alliance to Save Energy President William A. Nitze.
GridPoint is the pioneer of an innovative smart grid platform that aligns the interests of electric utilities, consumers and the environment. The platform applies information technology to the electric grid to provide utilities with an intelligent network of distributed resources (e.g., advanced load control devices, batteries, solar systems) that reside at the point of consumption – the home or business. Additionally, the platform's modular, scaleable and upgradeable architecture enables utilities to create a practical path for integrating new clean technologies (e.g., plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and fuel cells).
During peak demand periods, the platform enables utilities to efficiently balance supply and demand by discharging stored power or reducing loads with minimal impact on customers (i.e., controlling temperature versus shutting down air conditioners). Utilities can also optimize existing baseload generation assets and relieve stress on transmission and distribution (T&D) lines.
The platform serves as a virtual peaking power plant, enabling utilities to avoid the regulatory, environmental and "time-to-build" hurdles associated with building centralized plants while fueling the mass adoption of renewable energy, reducing carbon emissions and conserving fuel, capital and land resources.
For consumers, GridPoint's platform provides protection from power outages, increases energy efficiency through online energy management and integrates utility-controlled renewable energy systems, paving the way for the commercial success of residential and light commercial solar and wind energy sources.
GridPoint's recent recognition includes being named overall winner by AlwaysOn GoingGreen 100 Top Private Companies 2007, one of the Red Herring 100 Global, as well as winner of the 2007 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Green Excellence for its success in pioneering a way to harness load management and distributed generation to achieve environmental sustainability. GridPoint is featured in the new book Earth: The Sequel, a business-centric approach to alleviating climate change by Fred Krupp, President of the Environmental Defense Fund, as well as in the Smart Grid chapter of The Clean Tech Revolution by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Could not find a suitable section so I written here, how to become a moderator for your forum, that need for this?