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Software startup engineers a smarter grid
Brian Fuller
10/29/2012 1:16 PM EDT
To the cloud
AutoGrid is building a platform that takes advantage of the data and "converts it into actionable intelligence."
DROMS is a cloud-based service for implementing and managing a wide range of power management programs such as direct load control, critical peak pricing, peak-time rebates and demand bidding.
A utility or industrial customer logs into the AutoGrid platform creates its programs and manages and monitors them from the interface, which leverages open protocols such as OpenADR, which connects various devices and nodes within the smart grid.
Early promise
AutoGrid's business model includes a set-up fee and then a percentage of the cost savings.
The idea is to give customers broader visibility into energy load data and to move away from an implementation, management and monitoring system that is today siloed. PG&E, for example, manages some 17 demand response programs, each with its own level of data granularity and its own program manager, according to Tang.
Any early DROMS customer has been the City of Palo Alto, which runs its own utility. Using the system, Palo Alto shed an average of 1.2 megawatts of peak demand, saving 3.5 megawatt hours of electricity, per event, according to Auto Grid.
Career shift
For Knudsen and Tang, the shift into a software-as-a-service business from the silicon side of things is not much of a leap given their experience working on PG&E's smart meter program. For Narayan (pictured nearby), the EDA industry vet, the transition came because he was director Stanford's Smart Grid Simulation Research program.
Related stories:
--Gov't mandates driving smart grid deployments
AutoGrid is building a platform that takes advantage of the data and "converts it into actionable intelligence."
DROMS is a cloud-based service for implementing and managing a wide range of power management programs such as direct load control, critical peak pricing, peak-time rebates and demand bidding.
A utility or industrial customer logs into the AutoGrid platform creates its programs and manages and monitors them from the interface, which leverages open protocols such as OpenADR, which connects various devices and nodes within the smart grid.
Early promise
AutoGrid's business model includes a set-up fee and then a percentage of the cost savings.
The idea is to give customers broader visibility into energy load data and to move away from an implementation, management and monitoring system that is today siloed. PG&E, for example, manages some 17 demand response programs, each with its own level of data granularity and its own program manager, according to Tang.
Any early DROMS customer has been the City of Palo Alto, which runs its own utility. Using the system, Palo Alto shed an average of 1.2 megawatts of peak demand, saving 3.5 megawatt hours of electricity, per event, according to Auto Grid.
Career shift
For Knudsen and Tang, the shift into a software-as-a-service business from the silicon side of things is not much of a leap given their experience working on PG&E's smart meter program. For Narayan (pictured nearby), the EDA industry vet, the transition came because he was director Stanford's Smart Grid Simulation Research program.
Related stories:
--Gov't mandates driving smart grid deployments
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