RESTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Intelligent energy network provider GridPoint today announced that it has been recognized as a finalist in the 2021 Cleanie Awards, the leading awards program focused on honoring individuals, companies, and innovations in the cleantech industry. GridPoint is nominated in the Project of the Year Judges’ Choice category for providing emergency capacity to the grid during California’s rolling blackouts in 2020, helping to keep power on.
Between August 14th – 21st 2020, California experienced emergency weather and grid conditions resulting in rolling blackouts across the state. GridPoint leveraged its network of buildings in impacted regions to voluntarily and instantaneously provide emergency capacity back to the grid through demand response, helping to stabilize energy demand and prevent further catastrophic blackouts. Within minutes of CAISO calling the statewide Flex Alert, GridPoint’s automated platform dispatched multiple curtailments across all participating small and medium sized buildings, providing needed system relief to impacted utility territories in California.
In addition to responding to both CAISO and utility signals throughout the crises, a subsection of GridPoint’s fleet of customer sites went above and beyond to voluntarily provide additional capacity back to the California grid in amounts greater than their predetermined load shed strategies. These risk-adjusted strategies permitted normal business operations to continue for GridPoint customers, many of which considered essential services, while collectively adding megawatts of capacity to the grid. While GridPoint works with thousands of customers to make demand response simple, there are still millions of inefficient, small-to-medium sized buildings underutilized today. This example proves that with grid-interactive technology deployed at-scale, these buildings can be leveraged as an energy resource to provide the reliable, on-demand capacity the grid increasingly requires.
The Cleanie Awards is entering the fourth year of its program and saw a triple digit increase in submissions over the past year. Judges include respected industry executives, marketers, advocates, entrepreneurs, and educators. The Project of the Year Judges’ Choice award recognizes company projects that add tremendous community value including local economic, environmental, or carbon offset impact. In addition to GridPoint, finalists include Ameresco, Enel X, Fluence and other industry leaders.
“We are honored to be a finalist for the 2021 Cleanie Awards,” said GridPoint CEO Mark Danzenbaker. “We are proud of our work supporting businesses and the grid during the 2020 California blackouts and will continue to help buildings transform the way they use energy in order to create a more sustainable future.”
Cleanie Award winners will be announced during a live webinar on November 16th, 2021 at 1:00 pm EST. The registration link for the webinar can be found at https://bit.ly/3BjtQ8d.
About GridPoint
GridPoint’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to a sustainable future by creating an intelligent energy network of grid-interactive buildings. By transforming the way commercial businesses use energy, GridPoint unlocks the decarbonization, sustainability, and grid resiliency required for a cleaner, more efficient tomorrow. Our technology platform harnesses power and potential within a building to deliver energy, operational, and resiliency benefits. Networked together, GridPoint intelligent buildings provide reliable, precise, and instantaneous capacity for utilities and grid operators. GridPoint’s growing network of commercial buildings spans across Fortune 500 enterprises, utilities, government organizations, and small businesses.
