CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--EPB and The Company Lab (CO.LAB) are inviting entrepreneurs with applications in smart grid development to apply to Chattanooga’s summer business accelerator, GIGTANK.
GIGTANK 2014 will offer participants in the smart energy space opportunities to build and test their applications using millions of data points from the nation’s most automated smart distribution grid, owned and operated by Chattanooga’s municipal utility, EPB.
EPB’s fully deployed smart grid is operating with a complete fiber optic communications backbone, award-winning distribution automation, AMI, smart grid management software, voltage optimization, and a host of other tools to optimize the performance of the grid.
In addition to live data points, participating teams receive free housing for the summer, $15k in seed capital, access to the community’s one gigabit-per-second Internet connectivity (the “gig”) as well as guidance from mentors and advisors from EPB, industry leaders such as S&C Electric Company and others.
At the end of the program, GIGTANK graduates will get a chance to pitch their business applications to investors from Chattanooga to startup hotspots across the country.
Ideal applicants may range anywhere from data analytics startups to university-level entrepreneurs or researchers studying smart grid development. Successful applicants are likely to be focusing on issues such as:
- Predictive analysis for distribution system
- Distributed generation
- Big data analysis
- Sustainable energy
- Smart/connected home products
- Loss minimization verification
- Load flow analysis
The ten-week program (May 12-July 31) is also inviting startups in the additive manufacturing and healthcare fields to apply. Applications may be found at http://www.thegigcity.com/startup-tracks/smart-grid/ and are open until March 14, 2014.
About EPB
In 1935, the City of Chattanooga, Tennessee established EPB as a nonprofit agency to provide electric power to the greater Chattanooga area. Today, EPB remains one of the largest publicly-owned electric power distributors in the country, serving roughly 170,000 homes and businesses. Using a 100% fiber optic network as its backbone, EPB has built a next-generation electric system that includes communication capabilities designed to reduce the impact of power outages, improve response time and allow customers greater control of their electric power usage. This same fiber optic backbone is allowing EPB to offer high-speed Internet, TV and phone service to business and residential customers community-wide. In September 2010, EPB became the first company in the United States to offer one gigabit-per-second Internet speed to the entire service territory.
About GIGTANK
GIGTANK is the world’s only startup accelerator connected to a living, metro-wide fiber optic network. Hosted by The Company Lab, this annual program attracts entrepreneurs from across the globe to Chattanooga, TN – the home of America’s first widely-available gigabit Internet service. With Internet speeds that run 100x faster than the national average, Chattanooga offers entrepreneurs the opportunity to innovate on the broadband platform of the future.