Ice Storage Air Conditioner

Philadelphia Energy Venture Fair Uncovers Opportunities for Investment - By Christopher Perdue

10/20/2003

Seventy-five emerging technology companies in the energy industry converged on Philadelphia Thursday to introduce their businesses to some of the premier energy venture capitalists from around the world. The companies presented their best case for funding to an audience of investors, including angels, venture capitalists, equity partners, investment banks, and utilities.

Analysis: The Energy Venture Fair is a unique conference that began over two years ago in Boston. The fair appears to have started a successful continuing series of conferences focused on ventures in the energy space. Organized by Infocast, the Energy Venture Fair-IV witnessed an attendance of over 240. The fair drew companies practicing in a wide variety of fields including generation, distributed generation, transmission, distribution, retail, information management and technology, exploration and production, energy storage, billing, fuel cell, wind power, hydrogen technology, power quality, and reliability.

In Friday's IssueAlert, we examined how participants felt about the current state of the energy venture capital sector. Today, we are going to focus on the companies that were selected by Energy Venture Fair participants as providing the best five presentations and, therefore, the best opportunities for investment. Let's take a closer look at these emerging firms profiled at the Energy Venture Fair. Since the fair does not release the ranking of the votes, the companies are presented in alphabetical order.

Comverge, Inc. (Energy Management & Communications)

For Comverge this is the third win at the Energy Venture Fair. Comverge, Inc. won this coveted award in Houston in February last year, and in Chicago last October. Comverge is a subsidiary of Data Systems & Software Inc. (NASDAQ:DSSI), and provides end-to-end, two-way communication solutions including automated meter reading, utility and/or customer-controlled appliance cycling, outage detection, load profiling, home automation, environmental monitoring, and distributed generation monitoring. As an integration of the energy management businesses of Lucent, Scientific Atlanta, and PowerCom, Comverge is a leader in the industry with over a 50-percent market share in certain segments. Comverge offers a full complement of products from basic direct-load control devices to sophisticated two-way communications systems that combine load control with real-time demand and price responsive programs. Serving over 500 energy companies in 15 countries, Comverge has over five million control devices in the field. In addition, Comverge high-end communications solutions are enabling utilities to transition to innovative pricing programs. Comverge is headquartered in Florham Park, N.J., can be found at http://www.comverge.com/.

Franklin Fuel Cells, Inc. (Fuel Cells)
Franklin Fuel Cell, Inc. is focused on the development of solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology. Under a licensing agreement with the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) and the Gas Research Institute (GRI) for commercial fuel cell products and components, Franklin Fuel Cell was established to commercialize a break through copper-based cermet solid oxide fuel cell technology for stationary and mobile power generation markets. Franklin Fuel Cell has acquired an exclusive license to intellectual property developed at Penn. In addition, GRI has contributed several enabling patents that are supportive and ancillary to the Penn intellectual property. According to Franklin Fuel Cell, inadequacies of the current power system, issues of power quality, deregulation of the power industry, and environmental concerns-along with the high reliability need of the emerging digital economy-have created new opportunities for small on site power generation technology. Franklin Fuel Cell claims that its technology is superior to other fuel cell technologies being developed for mobile markets, because it eliminates the need for a fuel reformer and costly materials. The company believes its technology will eliminate the need for reformation and sulphur removal of hydrocarbon fuel in the fuel cell, and will greatly simplify system controls. Franklin Fuel Cell is headquartered in Wayne, Pa., and can be found at http://www.franklinfuelcells.com.

Ice Energy, LLC (Energy Storage)
Ice Energy develops, manufactures, and markets distributed energy storage systems for use with central air conditioners on small- to medium-sized commercial and residential buildings. The company is operating under an exclusive patent assignment agreement with Powell Energy Products, Inc. The assignment includes the patents, productization plans, trade secrets, and intellectual property rights for an invention known as the Ice Bear. The Ice Bear has received a favorable technical evaluation by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Twelve beta units have been field tested in eight states. The Ice Bear offsets the single largest contributor to summer on-peak demand—air conditioning. The Ice Bear product is the industry's first ice energy storage module that was specifically developed to reduce the cost of air conditioning for small-to-medium- sized commercial businesses. The Ice Bear is compatible with the traditional, refrigerant-based air conditioning systems that are commonly used in commercial buildings with less than 150,000 square feet. The Ice Bear is sized to off-load the demand associated with 5 to 10 tons of cooling and can be implemented in new or retrofit installations of split (residential style), rooftop, and mini-split systems. The system can be installed by traditional HVAC service personnel. Ice Energy is headquartered in Fort Collins, Colo., and can be found at https://iceenergys.com.

Pentadyne Power Corp. (Flywheels)
Pentadyne Power Corporation designs, manufactures, and markets advanced flywheel power systems that provide power quality and reliability solutions for power sensitive customers. Pentadyne serves broad markets through strategic alliances with established original equipment manufacturers and value-added reseller distribution channels. Designed to provide high power output and energy storage in a compact, self-contained package, Pentadyne claims its flywheels are a long lasting, low maintenance, lightweight, and environmentally sound alternative to conventional batteries. According to Pentadyne, its flywheel technology provides superior performance without the high cost of ownership and the environmental impacts that batteries present, and due to the unique operating features such as rapid recharging and broad operating temperature range, the Pentadyne flywheel can be used where batteries have been ruled out. Pentadyne Power Corp. is headquartered in Chatsworth, Calif., and can be found at http://www.pentadyne.com.

Rentricity, Inc. (Renewable Energy/Microturbines)
Rentricity is a hard company to classify, but if you had to do it in one word, I suppose that word would be micro-hydropower. The company uses its proprietary flow-to-wire systems to capture untapped energy created by various man-made processes, and transforms it into electricity. This surplus energy is available within pipes and systems where gases, liquids, or solids exert excess pressure. Rentricity currently serves pubic water distribution utility systems to transform excess pressure in water mains into clean electricity. Each flow-to-wire device will produce between 20 and 100 kilowatts per hour, and will operate continuously. The flow-to-wire systems have no environmental impact, and will be comparably sized to the valves that presently reduce pressures but do not perform useful work with the energy produced. While the company currently focuses on water distribution systems, Rentricity sees great potential in other areas such as natural gas pipelines, refrigeration systems, steam pipelines, and chemical refining facilities. Rentricity is headquartered in Skillman, N.J., and can be found at http://www.rentricity.com/.

These are just brief summaries of the five winners at the Energy Venture Fair-IV. Behind these five winners were many other quality investment opportunities. Congratulations to the five winners in Philadelphia and to Infocast for a successful Energy Venture Fair-IV. Let's keep our eyes on these companies.