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Schneider Electric to Buy Smart Grid Firm Telvent

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:15:19 +0000

Power gear giants are continuing their smart grid shopping spree. On Tuesday, Schneider Electric announced that it is bidding to buy software maker Telvent for $40 per share, or about $2 billion. The acquisition would give Schneider, which is a massive power equipment maker, more software and IT capabilities for the power grid.

Schneider also announced on Monday that it plans to buy 74 percent of Luminous Power Technologies, which makes power grid gear — like batteries and inverters — for about $310 million. Luminous is based in New Delhi, India, while Telvent is based in Madrid, Spain, and is 40-percent owned by Spanish conglomerate Abengoa.

Schneider CEO Jean-Pascal Tricoire said on a conference call that the Telvent deal “reinforces Schneider Electric’s positions in three key infrastructure markets: smart grid, efficient infrastructures, and smart cities,” reports Bloomberg. Those three areas are where Schneider’s power gear competitors are ramping up, too, including ABB, Siemens, GE, and even Toshiba.

About a year ago, Swiss electrical equipment giant ABB jumped feet first into the smart grid with the purchase of software maker Ventyx (from Vista Equity Partners) for over $1 billion. Then in January of this year, ABB acquired another smart grid software company Obvient. Siemens has announced a flurry of new projects and partnerships over the past couple of years looking to add on smart grid software, and has a goal to double its current growth rate in the smart grid sector to capture about $8.5 billion in global business over the next five years.

GE has acquired smart meter tech startup Remote Energy Monitoring, as well as Opal Software, which makes software and services for smart grid network testing and management. Toshiba is buying smart meter maker Landis+Gyr for $2.3 billion.

Schneider has made other acquisitions in the past, including through a joint partnership with Alstom, bought the transmission and distribution business of Areva for $3.25 billion. Schneider also bought the energy procurement and energy management provider Summit Energy for $268 million earlier this year.

Schneider’s $2 billion offer — at $40 per share — for Telvent was 16 percent higher than Telvent’s closing share price on Monday, and 36 percent higher than Telvent’s average share over the past 3 months, said Schneider. Telvent had 2010 sales of $1.09 billion, and adjusted EBITDA of $165.96 million. Telvent’s shares rose 15.27 percent on the news of the deal.

The power grid is going digital and will increasingly rely on software, analytics, computing, communications networks and data management. The power gear companies are in a strong position to make these types of purchases, and along with competing with each other, contend with IT giants like Cisco, and building automation companies like Honeywell and Johnson Controls.

Image courtesy of Rennett Stowe.

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GE Buys Up Irish Power Line Monitoring Company

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 24 May 2011 15:29:26 +0000

One benefit of GE launching its smart grid challenge last year is that it has created a decent potential shopping list. Tuesday morning, GE said it has acquired one of its grid challenge winners: Irish powerline monitoring company FMC-Tech. GE didn’t disclose the size of the acquisition, but the deal follows GE investing more heavily in technology for the smart grid, including buying up smart meter tech startup Remote Energy Monitoring in January, and smart grid network testing and management company Opal Software in October of last year (see our smart grid acquisition list).

FMC-Tech, founded in 2001, fits cables with sensors that can measure current and conductor temperature and can send that information to a controller that then sends it back to the utility via a cellular connection. The technology provides power line monitoring for utilities and utilities can identify power line outages more easily and quickly. GE also says the monitoring system can integrate with the smart meter and energy management systems throughout a smart grid.

GE is one of the 5 big smart meter makers, and it is also a power gear provider, and has been increasingly looking to add smart grid software and networking technology between the meter and the substation. FMC-Tech will become part of GE Energy Services’ Digital Energy Smart Substation business.

GE launched its smart grid challenge last year, which included a $100 million investment from GE to allocate to innovative smart grid companies. A group of venture firms — including Kleiner Perkins, Foundation Capital, Emerald Technology Ventures, and Rockport Capital — put up a matching $100 million for the challenge as well.

Back in November, GE named 12 winners and five “innovation award winners” from its current challenge submissions. The 12 winners split about $55 million in awards between them and included some well-known names like energy billing company OPower, cellular home energy startup Consert, data center efficiency firm SynapSense, tinting window maker Soladigm, commercial building energy company Scientific Conservation, and energy storage company SustainX. There were also some companies I hadn’t heard of before on GE’s list, like solar hot water company ClimateWell, EV charging data management company Columbia Engineering, green data center company Joule-X, distribution automation software company Sentient Energy, and grid security company Secure RF.

And of course powerline monitoring company FMC-Tech was on that list. The company has now officially graduated.

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Green IT’s Q4 Winners: Wind Power, Solar Power, Smart Energy

Jeff St. John — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:00:09 +0000

Greentech marked its best year ever in 2010, and part of that is thanks to the wealth of activity across sectors during the fourth quarter. Global investment in clean energy surged, and while wind power remained the biggest greentech area, solar power saw the fastest growth. The energy efficiency sector appears to have more room for smaller players to make their mark amidst a rapidly maturing market. Meanwhile, China’s stance as a growing greentech giant continued to complicate its relationship with the United States. Companies mentioned in this report include General Electric, Intel, ZigBee, iControl, People Power and EnerNOC. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial.

GE Snaps Up Opal Software for the Smart Grid

Katie Fehrenbacher — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:27:30 +0000

GE is stretching out further along the network of the smart grid. This morning, GE said it has acquired Australian company Opal Software, which makes software and services for smart grid network testing and management. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Opal Software’s applications and services help utilities manage the process of building, integrating, changing and testing of their so-called SCADA networks. SCADA stands for supervisory control and data acquisition networks. These are often simple networks that connect to power grid control systems. GE, which already makes smart meters and power grid equipment, can use the newly acquired company’s software to offer services further along the network, past the meter and outside the power plant and the substation.

GE has made no bones about its interest in the smart grid lately. Earlier this year, the company announced a $200 million smart grid fund — in conjunction with a few venture capitalists — that’s meant to award funds to innovative smart grid ideas and projects. However, GE hasn’t made many acquisitions yet in the space, compared to major smart grid acquirers including Grid Point, EnerNOC, Cisco and Honeywell.

In fact, the smart grid is one of the best places to get your software startup acquired this year. EnerNOC has purchased five companies; Cisco bought Arch Rock last month, basically for its software; and Honeywell bought open source software company Akuacom in the spring. However, since most of these acquisitions come with an undisclosed price, it’s hard to tell just how good these deals have been for the startups.

GE also says one reason it bought Opal Software is to access the Asia-Pacific market. In other words, Australia. The Australian government has enacted a national broadband plan, which includes investments into countrywide smart grid networks, and has turned Australia into one of the most active smart grid markets in the world.

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