Smart Grid Venture Showcase 2011

Blue Line Innovations Inc. is an award-winning manufacturer of real-time energy monitoring products that help consumers save money while helping to conserve energy. Founded in 2003, in Newfoundland, Canada, Blue Line Innovations has been leading the development of real-time energy monitor products for the consumer market. With over 150,000 units sold, our PowerCost Monitor™ is an easy to use and easy to install real-time feedback device for monitoring home electricity usage.

The PowerCost Monitor™ puts the power to save electricity into the consumer’s hands. And by saving electricity, consumers are not only saving money – they are helping the environment. Blue Line Innovations power saving devices are designed to be so easy to use. Adults are empowered with the information they need to save money, and many users report that their children quickly become involved and enjoy being able to actually see how their actions can save energy and money.

Energy monitoring is something we can all feel good about. Whether we are working with electric utilities, metering companies, retailers or other industry partners, Blue Line Innovations is committed to helping consumers reduce energy consumption and as a result help our environment.

To learn more about our energy monitor products, please see our company video.

Conventional wisdom holds that cost is the primary obstacle to large-scale integration of solar photovoltaic power plants into the grid, i.e., the cost per kWh is just too much more expensive than that of electricity generated by fossil fuels. However, intermittency is proving to be just as great an issue. Predictable intermittency, such as during nightfall, can be easily incorporated into grid management, but the variations due to weather are considerably more problematic.

The to-date unpredictable variation in cloud cover forces utilities to maintain a higher baseload capacity to compensate. In California alone the current annual cost of keeping that additional power generation on is 15 to 26 million dollars. There are strong regulatory drivers to increase the amount of solar energy added into the energy mix, increasing grid management costs. If we could forecast 24 hours in advance exactly how clouds will move over solar plants, we can reduce utility costs significantly and improve grid reliability. 

Green Power Labs has a solution: proprietary, state of the art solar power forecasting based on three major components:

• satellite image processing to locate current clouds
• ensemble numeric weather predictions to forecast positioning
• solar power plant modeling to project total electricity generated

Our extremely precise forecasts are delivered using the most advanced web-based Geographic Information System (GIS) toolset, enabling seamless integration into any utility power management system. This capability will amount to a $1B market for solar power forecasting by 2015, when 270 GW will have been installed globally in over 135,000 large scale PV power plants. 

Our target customers include utilities in the US and smart grid technology companies worldwide. Our primary product is a hardware/ software combination for which we charge a one-time setup fee. To obtain support, the latest upgrades and premium services, customers will also pay an annual subscription fee. To date, these contracts have averaged two years in length.  By 2015, we expect to have revenues approaching $20M. We expect breakevent in 2012.

Our team, based in Canada and Australia, has over 150 years of combined experience in this field.  

The single largest energy expense for commercial and industrial buildings in North America is heating the air.  Enerconcept Technologies delivers an environmentally sound solution that delivers heated air at 15% lower than natural gas (pegged).

We offer the most comprehensive line of tested and approved solar air heating panels anywhere. Since 1998, we have designed, sold and installed several hundred solar air heating systems on commercial, industrial, institutional, agricultural and residential projects. Our industry-leading performance arises from innovations such as our patented Perforated Glazing Technology (PGT), which enables very high efficiency across the wide range of air flows found in the more than 250,000 buildings across the United States with more than 5,000 CFM air handling capabilities.

Our collectors can be integrated into the rooftops and walls of new buildings or retrofit on existing roofs. In contrast to most other forms of solar energy systems, our products are highly efficient in northern latitudes, blend into a wide range of architectures and are quick and inexpensive to install. Payback periods to date have been under two years, not the 25 or more required by many photovoltaic installations. For customers that do not wish to make an initial capital investment, we are partnering with US-based Revolution Energy to provide heated air from our systems via innovative Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) at a fraction of the cost of air heated by any other energy source.

Profitable since 20xx, we are poised to accelerate our growth through sales of our standardized panels to distributors and franchisees. Our partnership with Revolution Energy will allow us to expand rapidly throughout the United States.