FirstFuel Software secured $8.5 million in financing from new and existing investors, including E.ON SE, Battery Ventures, Rockport Capital and Nth Power. The investment comes on the heels of other significant milestones for the utility SaaS analytics company, whose customer list now includes several of the largest North American utilities. The new funding will support FirstFuel’s continued expansion in North America, and now globally, as well as further accelerate development of its Remote Building Analytics. The platform leverages deep data analytics to drive efficiency in commercial buildings.
More about FirstFuel’s $8.5 million in financing
The US Energy Department is offering $10 million to support research, development, and manufacturing of solid-state lighting across the country as part of the department’s goal of cutting energy waste and doubling energy productivity by 2030. The DOE hopes to accelerate the development of high-quality light-emitting diode and organic light-emitting diode products to reduce lighting energy use by half and enhance U.S. global competitiveness. Funding is available for:
- Core Technology Research – projects seeking to advance applied research for technology development, with an emphasis on meeting efficacy, performance, and cost targets.
- Product Development – projects seeking to use basic or applied research to develop or improve commercially viable SSL materials, devices or systems.
- U.S. Manufacturing – projects seeking to accelerate SSL technology adoption through manufacturing innovations and improvements that reduce costs and enhance quality and consistency.
More about the Energy Department’s $10 million to support solid-state lighting technologies
The U.S. Energy Department awarded more than $1 million to three states to advance clean energy manufacturing and support President Obama’s goal of doubling U.S. energy productivity by 2030. The funding is meant to boost local economic development, significantly increase statewide energy savings, and spur investment in clean energy technologies. As part of their projects, Michigan, North Carolina, and Washington will develop roadmaps for public and private partnerships in clean energy manufacturing and services. Additionally, each will partner with neighboring state governments and organizations to boost regional clean energy manufacturing.
More about the Energy Department’s goal of doubling U.S. energy productivity
American Efficient has launched its Clean Choice program for utility customers . The program helps consumers purchase renewable energy for their homes or businesses through local, trusted residential and business networks. With $2.5 million in funding led by Clean Pacific Ventures, American Efficient is ramping up from its eighteen-month beta phase into its official launch. Almost half of all Americans live in electric choice states in which residents can switch to 100 percent renewable power. American Efficient makes this switch easier by allowing for mass adoption of renewable power and energy efficient products. It is a “cleansoft” company, designed to deploy software and business model innovations rather than longer-cycle, new infrastructure to help green our energy system.
More about American Efficient’s official launch
EnerNOC has entered an agreement with Marubeni Corporation to form a joint venture to provide demand response in Japan. The new company will be named EnerNOC Japan and will have an exclusive license to market EnerNOC’s DemandSMART cloud-based DR application throughout the country. The two firms also announced their award of a government-sponsored DR program with the Tokyo Electric Power Company, Japan’s largest utility.
More about EnerNOC’s agreement with Marubeni Corporation
Awesense launched a new smart grid analytics solution, called True Grid Insight (TGI), focused on mitigating the risks of outages, theft and other unidentified losses in distribution grids. Utilities worldwide lose $100 billion of electricity each year due to avoidable distribution losses and power theft, and this increases by about 2.5% per year. Aging distribution grids are also subject to stress caused by new distributed generation, electric vehicle charging needs and other changes that can cause overloads and disruptions.
More about Awenese and its new smart grid analytics solution
