Frost & Sullivan Applauds GridPoint for Green Excellence in Technology

Palo Alto, Calif. — Tuesday, September 17, 2007— Frost & Sullivan has selected GridPoint Inc., a leading clean tech company whose smart grid platform benefits electric utilities, consumers and the environment, as the recipient of the 2007 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Green Excellence in building management technologies in recognition of its success in pioneering a way to harness load management and distributed generation to achieve environmental sustainability. The Award will be presented at the 2007 Growth Excellence Awards banquet in Monterey, California.

GridPoint SmartGrid Platform™ aligns the interests of electric utilities, consumers and the environment through an intelligent network of distributed resources that controls load, stores energy and produces power. The platform enables utilities to efficiently balance supply and demand by discharging stored power during peak periods, reducing customers’ non-essential loads, optimizing existing base-load generation assets and relieving stress on transmission and distribution (T&D) lines.

"GridPoint has displayed the best characteristics of a successful Green Excellence initiative in the technology arena," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Konkana Khaund. "It has uniquely brought together the capabilities of load management, energy efficiency monitoring, energy storage and harnessing of renewable energy resources by devising an innovative interface platform between consumers and utilities, integrated through an intelligently controlled Web environment."

GridPoint SmartGrid Platform provides a modular, scaleable and upgradeable architecture that enables utilities to achieve the short and long-term goals of the Smart Grid. Utilities can immediately deploy proven technologies, (e.g., load control devices, batteries or renewable energy systems) while creating a practical path for integrating new technologies (e.g., plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and fuel cells). For consumers, GridPoint’s platform provides protection from power outages, increases energy efficiency and integrates renewable energy systems, paving the way for the commercial success of solar and wind energy sources.

The company’s timely and discerning response to emerging dynamics is noteworthy. Across North America, the industry has witnessed a substantial hike in energy prices leading to frequent electricity rate increases. Moreover, peak load requirement of utilities far exceeds the average load growth, thus putting a lot of capital inefficiency into the transmission and distribution (T&D) networks.

"These factors directly fuelled the innovation process behind GridPoint’s platform, which focuses on networking renewable energy into a utility-like asset," notes Khaund. "The technology is sustainable to utilities and at the same time capitalizes on the burgeoning interest in mainstream green awareness. It adequately addresses the desire for clean energy in response to the growing concerns on global warming."

In combination with the GridPoint Operations Center (interface with utilities) and GridPoint CentralSM (Web-based portal for consumers), GridPoint’s is truly the first system of its kind that provides vital information on total quantum and value of solar power generation in kilowatt-hours.

The GridPoint system is also an apt and timely answer to utilities that are interested in deploying a wireless networked environment. It provides information management, cataloging, structuring data, and gives the utility a variety of virtual control areas for optimizing its generation and consumption profiles at the same time.

"The system has been designed to absorb new capabilities without having to re-invent any part of the architecture," remarks Khaund. "It is a modular, scalable and reliably intelligent system responsive to conventional energy consumption items, renewable components, energy storage, and even plug-in electric hybrid automobiles."

Without doubt, GridPoint has displayed the very best characteristics of a successful Green Excellence initiative in the technology arena. For this reason, it is a worthy recipient of the 2007 North American Frost & Sullivan Building Management Technologies Green Excellence Award.

Frost & Sullivan’s Building Management Technologies Green Excellence Award for Technology Innovation is presented to a company Award that has demonstrated superior technological advancement, which is aligned with a sustainable and environmentally conscious objective within its industry sector. The Award recognizes the company's identification of a unique and revolutionary solution with significant environmental benefits, while presenting tremendous market potential simultaneously. The award also signifies that the company's overall business strategy is sound and poised for success.

About Green Excellence Awards
Instituted as an integral part of the Environment & Building Technologies Practice of Frost & Sullivan, Green Excellence Awards are presented to companies that have demonstrated a concerted initiative towards envisioning and implementing sustainable and environmentally conscious practices. These awards recognizes recipient companies/institutions’ initiatives across a wide spectrum of categories such as product and technology innovation, service achievements, corporate leadership, global environmental leadership and environmental activism. The awards signify the recipients’ ground-breaking ideation, innovation and model of business delivery that originated from a firm sense of environmental responsibility. Recipient companies are committed to a continuous focus on reducing the dependency on finite resources, from concept to commercialization. Their efforts demonstrate a resolve to reduce the impact of climate change and overall ecological footprint.

About Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Awards
Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

About GridPoint Inc.
GridPoint, Inc., a leading clean tech company, is the pioneer of an innovative smart grid platform that aligns the interests of electric utilities, consumers and the environment through an intelligent network of distributed resources that controls load, stores energy and produces power. Utilities efficiently balance demand and supply by discharging stored power during peak periods, reducing customers’ non-essential loads, optimizing baseload generation assets and relieving stress on T&D assets. The platform’s modular, scaleable and upgradeable architecture enables utilities to deploy proven technologies, (e.g., load control devices and advanced batteries) while creating a practical path for integrating new technologies (e.g., plug-in hybrid vehicles and fuel cells). For consumers, the platform provides protection from power outages, increases energy efficiency and integrates renewable energy, paving the way for the commercial success of solar and wind energy sources. On the Net: www.gridpoint.com

About Frost & Sullivan
Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, has been partnering with clients to support the development of innovative strategies for more than 40 years. The company's industry expertise integrates growth consulting, growth partnership services, and corporate management training to identify and develop opportunities. Frost & Sullivan serves an extensive clientele that includes Global 1000 companies, emerging companies, and the investment community by providing comprehensive industry coverage that reflects a unique global perspective and combines ongoing analysis of markets, technologies, econometrics, and demographics. For more information, visit http://www.awards.frost.com.

Events	Want Ads
Our Sponsors	Resources