REGEN and Fat Spaniel connect on energy management
There’s a buzz around Toronto-based REGEN Energy these days, the company that uses “swarm logic” to manage the energy use of large appliances in buildings that cycle on and off. REGEN’s EnviroGrid devices, when several are attached to appliances scattered throughout a building, communicate with each other wirelessly and figure out amongst themselves — without any central control — which ones should turn on and which should turn off to minimize a large electricity consumer’s overall peak load. There’s little, if any, human intervention. That said, humans can intervene by taking control of the devices in a demand-response scenario to turn down load. For this reason, REGEN’s technology is both a load management and a demand response tool.
Anyway, at the GreenNet ’09 conference REGEN announced this evening it has partnered up with Fat Spaniel, which has a renewable-energy monitoring application, called the Insight Platform, that is gaining industry momentum.
Here’s the canned comment from the press release: “The combination of Insight Platform and EnviroGrid will provide customers with the ability to both closely monitor their renewable energy generation and flexibly manage key electric loads including HVAC, lighting and cold storage to reduce peak demand during periods of reduced renewable energy production. In addition, EnviroGrid also allows customers to maximize energy efficiency and to participate in Demand Response programs,” said Mark Kerbel, president of REGEN. “Together we will help customers be both responsible and responsive in their energy generation and usage.”
REGEN also announced today a marketing and development alliance with Toronto-based Zerofootprint, which has software that can help companies measure and manage their carbon footprint. Ron Demo, founder of Zerofootprint, is also an investor in REGEN. Way to go, Toronto boys.
For a recent article detailing what REGEN does, check out this MIT Technology Review piece.
Tags: Fat Spaniel, REGEN, Zerofootprint
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
