Outsmarting the grid

Cuvasion Estate Wines monitors its 250-kilowatt solar installation in real time.

When Cuvaison Estate Wines’ roof-mounted solar array isn’t operating at its ideal capacity, any of the winery’s employees with access to a Web browser could be the first to sound an alarm.

That’s because Cuvaison, nestled on a sweeping expanse of property at the northern tip of California’s Napa Valley, is using a solar plant management system that streams real-time data about the array’s power output to the company’s Web site. The system also signals alerts about failures, tracks important environmental data such as shading and wind speed and verifies power production to qualify for state rebates.

For the 570-acre winery, which relies on the solar array to generate 95 percent of its electricity needs, such data is as vital to its success as the quality of its grapes. So the company turned to San Jose, Calif.–based Fat Spaniel Technologies to bring intelligence to its 250-kilowatt power plant, whose performance otherwise would have been as opaque as Cuvaison’s popular Cabernet. The system helps Cuvaison ensure its solar array is working as efficiently as possible and it gets a return on its solar investment more quickly. A side benefit, the winery boosted its public image by making much of the data available on its Web site as evidence of its broad use of renewable energy.

Fat Spaniel is just one of a growing number of companies bringing intelligence to the edge of the electric grid, where power is generated and consumed. These companies are helping to expand the notion of the “smart grid” beyond a building’s electric meter, and they’re often doing it without the help of utilities. Customers such as Cuvaison are embracing such solutions because they lower their energy bills and carbon footprints and put their commitment to sustainability to action.

“There is room for innovation all the way through the electric grid,” says Laurie Yoler, managing director of GrowthPoint Technology Partners, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based investment bank. “We want energy intelligence beyond the meter because there is a lot of opportunity to innovate within homes and businesses.”

Residential and commercial buildings account for about 40 percent of total U.S. energy consumption, with the majority of it used for lighting, heating and cooling. It is yet to be seen how aggressive electric utilities will be in pushing smart services beyond the meter, Yoler says. But so far utilities have largely stopped there, with the rollout of smart meters that can automatically transmit energy usage to their back offices. With little incentive to help customers reduce their energy usage—at least until carbon legislation goes into effect—and regulatory hurdles, many utilities are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how or even if they might want to get into the game.