Grid Edge 20: Who Is Disrupting the U.S. Electric Market?

On Thursday, greentechmedia.com (GTM) released its second annual "Grid Edge 20: The Top Companies Disrupting the US Electric Market," which recognizes companies in the electrical power sector with new products, disruptive strategies and forward-looking vision.

The basic premise put forth by GTM is that after 100 years of essentially little change, the U.S. electrical distribution grid "is shifting toward a more distributed, responsive grid driven by technology innovation and evolving customer demands."

Today there are net-metered residential customers with rooftop PV solar panel installations who are eager to sell excess power back to the electric utility. Many of the companies selected in the Grid Edge 20 are helping to address the challenges associated with how legacy grids reverse the flow of current.

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Notable Investor Highlights

These companies run the gamut from small private firms to familiar large electric utility companies and industrial corporations.

1. SolarCity SolarCity Corp SCTY is "making a major play in energy storage, leveraging its access to Tesla's battery-based energy storage hardware."

According to GTM, SolarCity will begin "offering 'microgrids as a service,' integrating solar, inverters, energy storage, and control software as part of a single package with little to no upfront costs." Additionally, SolarCity is aiding customers in improving broad home energy management through a partnership with Nest.

2. Tesla Tesla Motors Inc TSLA is "building toward a truly grid-edge future that includes not only electric vehicles, but also supercharging stations, solar arrays and energy storage systems.

GTM continued, explaining Tesla's new initiatives, "At the end of April, Tesla will officially launch its stationary energy storage product line, rumored to include a smaller battery for residential use and a large battery for utility applications."

3. Sunverge Sunverge Energy Inc. is involve with large utility battery storage pilot programs and has built a control platform "to manage its battery units in ways that can help smooth out solar-altered load curves, reduce congestion on specific circuits, and otherwise manage the economic disruptions that distributed solar can cause utilities."

In December, Sunverge announced its collaboration with SunPower Corporation SPWR, which GTM described was done to "add the solar development channel to its paths to market."

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4. Landis+Gyr Landis+Gyr, owned by Toshiba Corp (USA) TOSYY, is "participating in pilot projects to merge solar power and energy storage systems at grid scale in the U.S. and abroad," said GTM. Landis+Gyr also won a huge 27 million-smart meter project with $800 billion cap Tokyo Electric Power Co.

5. NRG Energy East Coast power generation giant NRG Energy Inc NRG subsidiary NRG Home tiptoed into the rooftop solar market in 2014 through its acquisition of Roof Diagnostics.

6. NB Power New Brunswick Power Corporation has created "an innovative virtual power plant (VPP) to manage increasing amounts of intermittent renewable resources without relying on expensive fossil-fuel peaker plants," said GMT.

7. GridCo GridCo Systems is a Woburn, Massachusetts-based startup focused on "in-line power regulator (IPR) devices [that] can digitally manipulate the waveform of the alternating current that energizes grid circuits, in ways that traditional electromechanical gear can't," according to GMT

8. Schneider Electric French-based grid and power equipment giant SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC S SBGSY was founded in 1836 and today has over 160,000 employees in 100 countries. GMT described it as "having its hands in about every aspect of the grid-edge nexus, from circuit breakers and building control systems to distribution grid gear and control software."

The complete list of GMT's Grid Edge 20 winners can be found here.   Image Credit: Public Domain