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Apple data center helps fuel Bloom Energy move to east coast

On the day Bloom Energy officially opened shop on the East Coast, the company’s CEO confirmed Bloom will supply fuel cells to Apple’s North Carolina data center.

Bloom Energy today is breaking ground on a factory in Newark, Delaware to build its Bloom Energy Servers, or Bloom Boxes, which produce electricity from natural gas or biogas.

The facility, which was a former Chrysler plant, will have the capacity to turn out 1,000 Bloom Boxes a year, Bloom Energy CEO K.R. Sridhar said in an interview with CNET. Each fuel cell, which is the size of few refrigerators, can generate 100 kilowatts of electric power.

Sridhar also confirmed that Apple’s Maiden, North Carolina data center will use Bloom’s fuel cells. The data center, now under construction, will have 4.8 megawatts worth of fuel cells powered by biogas. It is expected to be the largest corporate fuel cell installation.

“Apple is an existing customer and they will use our fuel cells in their North Carolina data center,” Sridhar said. CNET contacted Apple and will update the story with more information when it’s available.

A fuel cell converts the energy in natural gas or biogas into electricity in a chemical reaction that gives off almost no air pollutants. Biogas contains methane from the decomposing organic matter. It can be captured from landfills and dairy or pig farms.

Generating power from a natural gas fuel cell reduces carbon emissions by about 40 percent to 50 percent compared to the U.S. grid, according to Bloom. It converts about 60 percent of the fuel’s energy into electricity and no energy is lost over transmission lines as happens with the grid, Sridhar said.

California-based Bloom Energy was attracted to Delaware in part by a renewable energy subsidy for fuel cells, which is expected to add about $1.35 a month to residential bills,according to reports. Local utility Delmarva Power also plans to purchase 30 megawatts of fuel cells which would be the largest purchase for a U.S. utility.

Utilities can add fuel cells to beef up the grid infrastructure in places of growing electricity need without having to build new transmission lines, Sridhar said.

But the bulk of the company’s customers are corporations, such as Apple, which Sridhar expects to be the case going forward.

The cost of power from fuel cells is roughly the same as the grid in some locations and the payback on a purchase in those places is three to five years. Most of Bloom Energy’s customers have been in California, which offers a subsidy for fuel cell power generation. Fuel cell power costs also benefit from plummeting natural gas prices in the U.S.

“But most importantly, they are buying it for reliability because it’s on site,” Sridhar said. “It’s not just the electrons, they are buying a reliable and clean solution.”

Sridhar to declined to say whether Bloom Energy, which was heavily hyped when it launched two years ago, has plans to go public or is profitable.

He said he expects rapid growth in fuel cells, but noted it’s a manufacturing-based industry, so the adoption rate won’t be the same as software or the Internet. “We believe it will take off rapidly but we are building an industry and we need to understand it will be rapid for manufacturing,” he said.

Full CNET article here.

Statements of Support for Green Button Initiative

Below please see statements of support for the Green Button Initiative.  For more information, see the press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 22, 2012

Utilities / Electricity Suppliers

American Electric Power   “The Green Button initiative is a natural evolution of AEP’s involvement in smart grid technologies. By providing energy consumption information in an easy-to-use format, our customers will be empowered to manage their energy usage, lower their bills and improve the environment,” said Robert P. Powers,AEP chief operating officer.

Baltimore Gas and ElectricCompany  “BGE is pleased to be a part of this important initiative, which is a natural fit with our ongoing efforts to provide our customers with the information and tools they are demanding in order to become more energy efficient,” said BGE President KenDeFontes. “With our smart grid initiative launching this spring, BGE’s customers will be the beneficiaries of this technology that, for the first time, will allow customers in near real time, to connect their energy use with their energy spend, resulting in energy savings and efficiency.”

Commonwealth Edison  “The opportunity to join the Green Button Initiative comes at a perfect time as we prepare to roll out smart meters later this year,” said Anne Pramaggiore, president and CEO, ComEd.  “Green Button will reinforce our efforts to educate customers and help them take full advantage of the benefits and added value that Smart Grid technology will deliver.”

NSTAR  “It’s well-known in the industry that knowledge is power when it comes to helping customers make substantive changes in how they use energy,” said Tom May, NSTAR Chairman, President and CEO.  “By adding the one-click ease of Green Button to our website, NSTAR is making it even simpler for our customers to access the information they need to take control of their energy use and reduce their carbon footprint.”

Pacific Gas & Electric Company  “There is incredible power and potential in providing our customers with new visibility into their energy use, with information that’s clear accurate, timely, and easy to use,” said Tony Earley, PG&E Corporation’s Chairman, CEO and President. “Today’s announcement shows PG&E’s commitment to stimulating growth and innovation in the developer community. When it comes to energy management, we are driven to help transform the way our customers manage energy in their home.”

PECO   “We plan to launch this new consumer-friendly feature on our website in 2013, providing customers with access to important energy consumption data,” said PECO President and CEO Craig L. Adams. “We will add this energy efficiency tool to our PECO Smart Ideas toolbox, which empowers customers to better understand how to manage and save both energy and money.”

Reliant  “More than 600,000 customers today are using Reliant’s smart energy solutions to conserve energy and make cost-saving decisions that positively impact their pocketbooks and the environment. Green Button is another way that Reliant customers can learn about how they use electricity and continue to make smart energy choices that work for them,” said Bill Harmon, the Reliant vice president who leads the company’s smart energy innovation effort. “With Green Button and Reliant’s innovative tools, customers have more options and ways to track and manage their electricity usage.”

Technology Companies

Belkin  “At Belkin, we believe in the potential of technology to empower consumers. Knowledge is power. When consumers have access to their energy data, it enables them to make behavioral changes that can add up to significant savings in both energy usage and monthly bills,” said Chet Pipkin, founder and CEO of Belkin. “We are excited by the growing success of the Green Button initiative and look forward to working with the standard in Belkin products in the near future. It’s a win-win for all parties.”

EcoDog  EcoDog CEO Ron Pitt commented, “We’re pleased that President Obama has recognized the importance of giving consumers better access to their energy information and applaud San Diego Gas & Electric for being one of the first utilities in the nation to provide customers with easy access to their detailed energy usage data. With their new Green Button tool, customers can download this data in a format that can be used for energy evaluation and analysis. To support their efforts, our team of software engineers has deployed a small subset of our sophisticated energy analytics software to enable SDG&E customers to get a better understanding of their energy use.”

Efficiency 2.0  “The Green Button signals the future of open source energy data innovation. It puts the power of energy information into the hands of the consumer, providing them a safe, secure way to understand their energy use and to shrink utility bills,” said Tom Scaramellino, CEO of Efficiency 2.0. “Integrating our software platform with the Green Button data standard is just another way we are building the most effective tools for utility customer engagement.”

EnergySavvy  “Green Button has the potential to become an open standard that unleashes private sector innovation and growth – not unlike the role of open standards and the internet. We’re excited about this effort – it will help accelerate our ability to serve customers nationwide and further invest in our rapidly growing team,” said Aaron Goldfeder, CEO, EnergySavvy

First Fuel  “Commercial buildings are most significant energy efficiency savings opportunity in the United States.  To achieve these savings at scale, our industry must maximize our use of the data and information available,” said Swapnil Shah, co-founder and CEO of FirstFuel Software.  “The Green Button initiative underscores this notion that data is the key to unlocking the trillion dollar energy efficiency savings potential in the US.  FirstFuel supports the initiative and is committed to helping utilities realize these tremendous savings opportunities across their commercial building portfolios.”

Honest Buildings  “Adding the Green Button is an easy decision for us,” said Riggs Kubiak, CEO of Honest Buildings. “It makes it easier and faster for owners to obtain the information they need to make smart decisions about how to reduce their energy consumption and add to their bottom line.”

Honeywell  “As a company with half of its product and technology portfolio tied to energy efficiency, Honeywell supports the Green Button initiative’s efforts to open up energy-use data. It’s good for consumers, who benefit from hassle-free access to information that will empower them to make smart energy decisions. While making home energy use data available is an important first step, the second step is to help consumers take action on it, and in the process, help their homes become smarter.” – Dan Sheflin, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions; Chairman of the Smart Grid Advisory Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Itron  “Itron is deeply committed to changing the way energy is managed by providing tools to empower consumers who want to control their energy usage and costs,” said LeRoy Nosbaum, Itron president and chief executive officer. “With a modernized grid and engaged consumers, we aim to achieve broad societal, environmental and financial benefits and help build a sustainable future.”

Lucid  “Before the Green Button, businesses investing in energy efficiency had to buy their consumption data twice – first from their utility, and again with monitoring hardware at their own expense. This diverts resources from the real activities that save energy and reduce costs. For those customers with the Green Button, many efficiency services can be provided electronically at the push of a button,” said Lucid’s CEO, Michael Murray.

Opower  “We’re excited about the emerging conversation around Green Button because at its core it is about the promise of energy information,” said Dan Yates, Opower’s CEO. “And, for five years, Opower has been working with utilities to make that promise real and deliver energy insighs to millions of American families.”

Oracle  “Today, Utilities have a major focus on enhancing their customer service experience,” said Linda Jackman, Group Vice President, Oracle Utilities.  “The Green Button Initiative gives customers access to their energy usage data online, in a user-friendly, standard format, encouraging awareness of energy consumption as well as empowering consumers to be more energy efficient.  Encouraging the value of smart grid initiatives is a primary focus for Oracle and we’re committed to supporting utilities that participate in the Green Button Initiative.”

PlotWatt  “Green Button is a huge leap toward empowering residential and small business utility customers. Most people don’t know the difference between a kilowatt and a kilowatt-hour, nor should they have to.  With Green Button, anyone can share their smart meter data with PlotWatt and we’ll figure out the meaningful insights that people do care about, namely how to make their electricity bill smaller” said Luke Fishback, CEO and founder of PlotWatt.

Schneider-Electric  “Historically, utilities and ratepayers could operate independently of each other as long as the lights stayed on, “ said  Chris Curtis, CEO, North America, Schneider Electric. “With the smart grid’s two-way communication we have an opportunity to shift that model, increasing reliability and efficiency of the entire system.  If electricity customers can get secure access to their own energy data in standard formats, they can take advantage of a growing ecosystem of energy management tools and services.”

Siemens  “We see the Green Button as a powerful element of the industry’s Energy Service Provider Interface standard for driving innovation and consumer benefits.  For that reason, we have been active in developing the standard and have established it on our product roadmap.” – Thierry Godart, president Siemens Smart Grid division.

Silver Spring Networks  “Our support of Green Button continues Silver Spring commitment to open, standards based networking and innovation to enable a dynamic and thriving smart grid ecosystem,” said Anil Gadre, Executive Vice President, Products  at Silver Spring.  “We are pleased to support the nationwide initiative which will empower consumers to make more informed decisions about their energy use.”

Simple Energy  “Data standardization coupled with robust infrastructure is an essential element for creating customer empowerment and engagement opportunities,” concluded the authors of the white paper, Justin Segall of Simple Energy and Chris King of eMeter. “The Green Button Initiative is an example of data standards delivering customer value. By utilizing smart grid and meter data management infrastructure to enable customer access to their energy usage data, the Green Button initiative is a great first step down the path of data access and standardization.”

Sunrun  “The uniform availability of consumption data allows homeowners to easily assess the value of going solar,” said Sunrun Director of Business Development Ethan Sprague.  “Similar to the way we can see how many cellphone minutes we’ve used at any given time to choose an appropriate phone plan, Green Button lets families see what the right solar plan is for them and how much value they’ll get out of it…Green Button will let homeowners understand their consumption patterns and make more informed choices about their source of energy based on both cost and environmental impact.”

TechNet New England  “Industry-led programs that enable customers to monitor their energy usage like NSTAR’s ‘Green Button’ is how technology and entrepreneurs can support private-sector jobs and modernize America’s infrastructure,” said Angela O’Connor, Executive Director, New England, TechNet. “TechNet supports the implementation of the ‘Green Button’ initiative, as it represents an important first step to answer the White House’s call to provide consumers with access to detailed energy usage information that will enable them to reduce costs and their carbon footprint.”

Tendril  “We applaud the Administration’s Green Button initiative.  Our platform was designed from the beginning to connect utilities and energy service providers, consumers and app developers to achieve smarter energy usage. The advent of the Green Button data means that now, our platform can be leveraged by each of these groups and ultimately, help foster the creation of an energy app marketplace that will drive continued innovation, job growth and cleaner energy.” – Adrian Tuck, CEO, Tendril

Other

Future of Privacy Forum  “Offering consumers access to their data provides the kind of transparency that enhances privacy,” said Jules Polonetsky, Director of the Future of Privacy Forum. “By showing consumers the details of energy usage data, utilities are taking an important step to ensure that smart meters are a key benefit intended to help consumers be smarter about energy use.  With appropriate privacy programs in place, access to data will increasingly empower consumers to use their data to manage smart home devices that will advance innovation and consumer control.”

National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC)  “Providing electricity consumers with quick and easy access to information regarding their own energy usage will empower them to make better decisions and become more energy efficient. NARUC has been a consistent supporter of these kinds of programs that give consumers up-to-date and timely access to their energy usage data because it enables them to make more informed decisions about energy usage, especially in a time of increasing prices. Voluntary efforts like the Green Button Initiative will have a positive impact on both our electricity prices and the environment, and we salute the States and utilities who are pursuing these developments.”
–Charles Gray, Executive Director, National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners

National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA)  NASUCA applauds the Administration for its “Green Button” initiative, and applauds utilities that are adopting the Green Button to enable consumers to securely download their own energy data.  Consumer Advocates across the nation strongly support voluntary efforts such as “Green Button” that provide consumers with the necessary tools to make wise energy choices to conserve energy and save money.

U.S. Green Building Council  “USGBC shares the goals of the initiative, which are to promote consumer control over energy use and provide opportunities to cut waste and save money,” said Chris Pyke, vice president of research at USGBC. “By providing easy access to data on building energy usage, the Green Button initiative can support consumer decision making, enable benchmarking, and inform energy efficiency investments.”

Utilities Telecom Council  “The Green Button Initiative will help consumers monitor and manage their energy consumption.  We believe that engaging consumers as a crucial stakeholder in the process will help us achieve national energy policy goals, deliver important societal benefits, and, realize important advancements in the utility value chain,” said Connie Durcsak, UTC President and CEO.

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2012 Intel Science Talent Search – Watch It Live!

Capital Access Network Raises $30M From Accel To Loan Small Businesses Working Capital

In this economic climate, many small businesses do not qualify for loans based on the standards imposed by banks and financial institutions. For fledgling businesses, the establishment doesn’t have enough cash flow, revenue or credit to qualify for a loan. Many times, entrepreneurs have to put up personal assets as collateral for loans, which can be problematic and risky. The fact is working capital is difficult to get from banks unless a business has perfect credit.

Capital Access Network (CAN), a company that gives small businesses access to credit and working capital and helps solve the problem outlines above, is announcing this morning that it has raised $30 million from Accel Partners. As part of the transaction, Accel partner, Kevin Efrusy will join Credit Access’s board of directors, and Accel vice president, John Locke, will join as an observer.

CAN constitutes the largest, non-bank alternative capital provider to small businesses in the US. The company uses its own real-time platform and risk scoring models to provide capital to small and medium-sized businesses in the US and Latin America and has funded over $2 billion in capital to SMB’s under the brands NewLogic Business Loans and AdvanceMe. This represents roughly 100,000 distinct small business finance transactions. This year alone, CAN will fund over $600 million in loans to small businesses.

Full TechCrunch article here.

Shopkick is on a mobile shopping tear with 3M users, over 1B offers viewed

Shopkick, the app that lets you earn rewards and deals simply by walking into a retail store, is doing really well. The company announced today that it has over 3 million active users since it launched over a year ago, and that over a billion of its in-app deals and offers have been viewed. Shopkick’s app communicates with a patent-pending device in stores, letting customers seamlessly earn rewards simply by strolling into a store and looking at products. All you need to do is have the app open to earn rewards — there’s no hunting and pecking for locations (and praying that GPS functionality works) with something like Foursquare.

The success of the app shows that Shopkick is certainly on to something. Consumers love earning rewards and free stuff, and retailers get a simple way to target specific customers. Not surprisingly, the app saw a big bump in usage over the last holiday season, with 5 million walk-ins to Shopkick-equipped stores in December 2011 alone. That was double the amount of walk-ins from four months prior. During the holidays, Shopkick users interacted with stores over 3.1 million times a day, up from just 1 million in August.

Shopkick’s technology has now been deployed in over 4,000 stores and 250 malls cross America. Recent partner brands include Old Navy, Disney, and Levi’s. Other notable stats: The company has seen over 150 million interactions with retailers since it added Old Navy in November. Sixty four percent of Shopkick users are women (more than half of which have kids), and the average user is 30 years old.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Shopkick has raised a total of $20 million from Kleiner, Greylock, Hoffman (investing as an individual before he became a partner at Greylock), Citi Growth Ventures & Innovation Group, and Ron Conway’s SV Angel.

VentureBeat article here

Visa certifies NFC-equipped Android, BlackBerry smart phones for payWave

NFC-enabled smartphones from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and Research In Motion approved for use with Visa payWave, Visa’s mobile application for payments at the point-of-sale

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan. 10, 2012– Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) and Visa Europe today announced that NFC-enabled smartphones from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and Research In Motion (RIM) have been certified for use with Visa’s mobile application for payments at the point-of-sale, Visa payWave. The Samsung Galaxy SII, LG Optimus NET NFC, BlackBerry® Bold™ 9900, BlackBerry Bold 9790, BlackBerry® Curve™ 9360 and BlackBerry Curve 9380 have been added to the list of Visa compliant payment products available for commercial deployment by financial institutions.

All the new devices certified by Visa host the Visa payWave application on a secure SIM card and feature NFC (Near Field Communication) technology, the short range communications standard that enables mobile phones to securely transmit payment information to a contactless payment terminal.

“This is an important step for Visa, its financial institution partners and the mobile industry,” said Bill Gajda, Global Head of Mobile Product, Visa Inc. “In addition to issuing plastic magnetic stripe or chip-enabled payment cards, financial institutions can now consider offering their accountholders a way to transform their smartphones into fully functional mobile payment devices.”

Visa’s certification of these smartphones paves the way for mobile device manufacturers, mobile operators and retailers to partner with financial institutions to offer Visa mobile payment functionality to consumers globally.

See full press release here.

Andreessen Horowitz, Salesforce Put $1.4M In Real-Time Messaging Infrastructure Startup Flotype

Flotype, a startup that offers a suite of technologies that simplify real-time messaging for cloud and mobile applications, has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Ignition Partners, Yuri Milner, Salesforce, and Y Combinator.

Flotype, which was part of Y Combinator’s Winter 2011 class, is announcing that its first product is Bridge, a technology that enables real-time communication between any server, any device, on any platform. Bridge is essentially an API that developers can use to avoid the complexity of building real-time messaging into their applications, and help push more data faster between servers, web browsers, mobile phones and other devices.

Founder and CEO Darshan Shankar explains that as he and his co-founders were studying engineering at UC Berkeley, they realized that the infrastructure behind real-time communications platforms like Facebook and Twitter needed to be democratized.

For companies that want to build complex real-time applications, Flotype provides a simple API that can be deployed within minutes by developers to enable these communications. As Shankar explains, these developers don’t need to spend millions (or billions) of dollars on building this infrastructure in-house, and can get to market faster.

For example, developers can build massive multiplayer video games like World of Warcraft for smartphones, or create the communications architecture behind a large-scale social data platform. While Shankar declined to tell us how much the use of the API costs, companies can test out the technology for free.

Full TechCrunch article here.

Code For America Receives $1.5M Grant From Google To Help The Government Harness Technology

Code for America, a non-profit which tries to bring the people and the power of the internet into government, has received a $1.5 million grant from Google.

Code for America launched this year to help governments become more transparent, connected, and efficient by connecting web developers with people who deliver city services. Earlier this year, Code for America debuted its inaugural fellowship program, which pairs technologists with leading cities to help them innovate.

In 2011, 19 fellows worked with 3 cities to develop over 21 applications, which are now being reused across the country and around the world. And the non-profit has also brought on Greylock Partner and former Mozilla CEO John Lilly and Tumblr VP and former White House and Google staffer Andrew McLaughlin to its Board of Directors. Other backers include the John S and James L Knight Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Open Society Foundation.

With the new funding, the organization is also launching two new programs (a Civic Startup Incubator and a Volunteer Engagement Platform). The seed accelerator, which has raised initial funding from Kauffman Foundation, will launch in the Spring of 2012 to help foster sustainable businesses that can become the next generation of government vendors.

In 2012, Code for America will also roll out an online platform to connect civic hackers and others with each other locally, and to reuse and remix civic apps in their cities.

Silver Spring Networks raising $30M, despite planned IPO

Smart grid company Silver Spring Networks is raising a $30 million round of debt and options, according to a filing. The company, which filed to go public this summer, has closed $24 million of that planned round and is looking to bring in another $6 million.

The company, which sells wireless networking products to utilities for smart meter deployments and other smart grid services, has seen a lot of growth in 2010 and 2011. According to Silver Spring’s latest amended S-1, the company brought in revenues of $175.72 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2011, with a $76.20 million net loss for the same period. In 2010 Silver Spring generated revenues of $70.22 million, $3.30 million in 2009 and just $58,000 in 2008. To date Silver Spring Networks has contracts for 17 million connected smart grid devices and has utility customers like Pepco Holdings, Constellation Energy, Florida Power & Light and PG&E.

Full Gigaom article here.

Applied Materials, launches a breakthrough tool to reduce chip power consumption

Applied Materialshas announced a new tool for reducing the power chips consume, enabling a new generation of powerful new gadgets with longer battery life.

The innovation is built into the chip equipment manufacturer’s newest tool, the Applied Producer Onyx film treatment system, announced today. Semiconductor chips serve as the brains of electronic gadgets from laptops to iPhones. And each chip has miles of microscopic electrical wiring built into it these days. The new Onyx effectively wraps those wires in a layer of insulation that can be accurately built at tiny dimensions.

“This is a big breakthrough,” said Bill McClintock, vice president and general manager of Applied’s Dielectric Systems and Modules business unit, in an interview.

He said that interconnect accounts for a third of the power used in a chip, and improving its power consumption results in higher performance and longer battery life. With Onyx, Applied Materials will enable the most power-efficient and strong interconnects in the industry.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Applied Materials is the world’s biggest chip maker. The new Onyx fits in line with its other chip-making chambers, which process wafers and move them to the next machine. Eventually, those wafers are sliced into individual chips and used in electronic devices.

Chip makers who buy the new system would introduce it in a chip factory (which can be built these days for $4 billion) as one of many machines in a manufacturing line. The Onyx would handle eight to 16 processes, which would be followed by as many as 150 other processes before the chip is finished.

Read the full Venture Beat article here.