Tucson Utility Hooks Up with Tendril to Grab Smart Grid Stimulus

Katie Fehrenbacher — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:00:08 +0000

Earlier this week we pointed out how the almost $4 billion in smart grid stimulus funds would provide a way for young startups to do deals with utilities, and a potential way for a startup to leapfrog the competition. Well, here’s another example of that: On Wednesday Tucson utility Tucson Electric Power (TEP) announced it has requested $25 million under a smart grid grant program that’s part of the stimulus package, and it plans to use the funds for a project that would include a residential demand response program from energy management startup Tendril.

The news from Tucson comes on the heels of the announcement earlier this week that Texas utility Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative plans to use startup Control4′s energy management tools for a smart grid project if it wins a smart grid stimulus grant. The lure of the stimulus funds seem to be encouraging utilities to place bets on energy management partners.

Tucson Electric Power’s project will use demand response programs and energy storage technology, including lithium-ion batteries and compressed air energy storage to better manage the solar power from utility-scale photovoltaic panels. The project will also include a lot of larger partners, including demand response company EnerNOC, smart meter maker Itron, defense contractor Raytheon, the University of Arizona, solar company Solon, Atlanta-based energy software company Ventyx, and consulting firms Summit Blue and Burns & McDonnell.

This is one of the few utility deals that Tendril has made public, though the company has a commercial rollout with Houston-based utility Relian and maintains that it has many more utility partners in the works. The five year old startup announced in June that it raised a $30 million third round of funding, making it one of the more well-funded energy management startups out there. Tendril’s energy management hardware and software is designed to help utilities and consumers communicate, and includes a wireless in-home energy display, a smart thermostat, a web-based energy portal, smart outlets and cell phone apps.

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Mochi Media Games Played By 100M Monthly Uniques

Wagner James Au — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:00:52 +0000

Today, casual game advertising network Mochi Media is reporting some pretty impressive user numbers: nearly 100 million monthly uniques across the network. 96 million to be exact, up from 48 million monthlies in early 2008. A lot of that growth seems to have been in recent months; when I spoke with “Chief Mochi” Jameson Hsu late last year, he reported 75 million uniques for October 2008. In a short phone interview last Friday, CEO George Garrick told me each unique user plays games on the Mochi network an average of 5-6 times a month, with each play lasting 5-10 minutes. But when will these gargantuan user numbers translate into profit, especially in this down market for advertising? Garrick said the company brought in $2-3 million in revenue last year, but that its main focus now is building the user base. However, he also added that Mochi plans to incorporate microtransactions, virtual currency, and other revenue streams besides ad dollars.

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GigaOM » Tucson Electric Power

Tucson Utility Hooks Up with Tendril to Grab Smart Grid Stimulus

Mochi Media Games Played By 100M Monthly Uniques