In the News
ConsumerPowerline Signs 18MW Marcal Demand-Response
Deal Dow Jones Clean Technology Investor
Staff Reporters
August 21, 2008
ConsumerPowerline Inc., an energy management services company, has signed a three year contract with paper products company Marcal LLC to provide 18 megawatts of demand response services.
Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.
In an interview with Clean Technology Investor, Gary Fromer, chief executive of ConsumerPowerline, said that the contract was one of the company's largest signed to date in the PJM Interconnection, which manages power flows in the Mid-Atlantic region.
The contract comes as an increasing number of utilities and big power consumers are getting more interested in demand-response programs, which reduce power consumption during peak periods based on calls from a utility, Frommer said.
"Demand-response programs are being used much more vigorously and regularly now," Fromer said. "There hasn't been a week that hasn't passed by this month without multiple events in various regions of the country."
An "event" for companies like ConsumerPowerline, or its larger publicly traded competitors Cambridge, Mass.-based EnerNOC Inc. and East Hanover, N.J.-based Comverge Inc., is when utilities call on them to reduce power consumption at their managed facilities.
"The programs are now being deployed as an alternative to really turning on that next peaker power plant," Fromer said.
As utilities begin to wake up to the potential emissions-reduction benefits and power savings to be realized in the summer by using demand response programs, more opportunities to sell demand response services will crop up around the country, Frommer predicts.
"It would surprise me if in the next 12-to-18 months there is not a viable demand-response program in every major municipality in the U.S.," Fromer said.
This increasing activity from utilities and system operators has meant surging revenue for ConsumerPowerline, Fromer said. He said the company expects to book over $40 million in annualized revenue for 2008.
And, according to Fromer, the opportunities are global. "I think there are huge opportunities still in North America, [but] I do think there are opportunities outside of the U.S. that we can add value for."
The company raised its first institutional financing last September, a $17 million round. Investors in the company include Bessemer Venture Partners, Consensus Business Group, Expansion Capital Partners and Schneider Electric Ventures.