Caterpillar Acquires Tech Company Tangent Energy Solutions
Caterpillar Inc. has acquired Tangent Energy Solutions, a U.S.-based energy-as-a-service (EaaS) company, which will now operate under Caterpillar’s Electric Power Division.
Headquartered in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, Tangent Energy seeks to provide customers with turnkey solutions for reducing energy costs, increasing energy efficiency, reducing emissions, monetizing electric grid support and providing resiliency for customer operations.
New York is Changing the Face of Energy Innovation
On the distributed energy resource (DER) front, several solutions providers have taken advantage of REV Connect to develop partnership revenue models with IOUs. For example, Tangent Energy Solutions is working with REV Connect to create a partnership model in which New York utilities can leverage market-based aggregation and control over a portfolio of DERs to deliver value to the grid and their commercial and industrial customers. Another DER company with a virtual battery solution, Packetized Energy, is working with REV Connect to deploy the virtual battery solution with no initial cost to customers, where the benefits from grid services can be shared between the utility, the utility customer, and the company.
Tangent Energy Among Greentech Media 2017 Grid Edge Award Winners
The following provides an excerpt from the GTM article and their overview of Tangent Energy. A link to the full article is provided at the end of this excerpt.
The 2017 Grid Edge Awards: Projects Defining the Future Integrated, Interactive Electric Grid
Our annual awards for companies leading the distributed energy transition.
by Jeff St. John
For the past four years, Greentech Media has been giving its Grid Edge Awards to the leading companies and projects that incorporate distributed energy resources, energy-enabled customers, and other emerging trends that are upending the century-old concept of centralized, unidirectional electricity delivery.
This year’s award winners — nominated by and voted on by energy industry stakeholders, including the team of analysts at GTM Research — represents an even broader set of participants in this energy revolution. First, the awards were expanded to accept submissions from companies or projects based outside the U.S., as well as individual commercial, industry or public energy consumers who have deployed distributed energy solutions on-site.
Second, our 2017 Grid Edge Awards include hard data from projects that are putting each winning company or project’s innovations to the test — a nod to the real-world growth we’ve seen emerge since we started tracking the field four years ago.
Tangent Energy Solutions
Tangent Energy Solutions specializes in enabling commercial and industrial customers, government agencies and utilities to capture the value of distributed energy resources. The company’s DERMS technology integrates customers into the grid edge, complete with the managed services and DER assets needed to participate in those opportunities. Working with retail energy providers allows Tangent to monetize C&I DER participation directly on customer energy bills.
So far, Tangent has worked with 8,000 customers in a dozen different business verticals, with more than 3,000 megawatts of managed DERs in its portfolio. It has also developed 95 megawatts of solar and natural gas distributed generation, and raised $90 million in project financing last year from Generate Capital and Constant Energy Capital.
Security Sessions | Municipal Utility Takes Action to Offset Steep Price Increases in New England
by Dean Musser PE
Municipal electric utilities in New England face significant energy cost increases in the coming years due to the retirement of older generation plants and the impact that shifts in the sourcing of generation will have on transmission patterns. Municipal utilities can mitigate the impact of these increases by reducing the amount of energy used across their service areas during targeted high-value periods, including critical peak hours. To accomplish this goal, municipal utilities must be able to do three things:
Predict when high value hours will occur on the grid
Motivate and empower large energy users in their service areas to reduce energy usage and, most importantly
Do all of this without transferring the customer relationship to a third party vendor
The following discusses these issues in greater detail and describes how one municipal utility in New England is meeting the challenge by employing a strategy that relies on Commercial and Industrial (C&I) Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and a Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS) that could save millions of dollars per year.
New England Generation Plant Retirements
EPA restrictions and marginal economics have caused a significant number of generation plants to announce retirements in New England. This, in turn, is driving cost increases in the coming years.
According to a published report1, More than 4,000 MW of primarily older, less efficient, and higher-emitting resources have already left the market, with another 3,500 MW exiting by 2018. Another 6,000 MW’s of capacity is sourced from plants that will be at least 40 years old by 2020 and designated at risk. Notable exits cited by the report include:
Brayton Point Station (1,535 MW from oil and coal)
Mount Tom Station (143 MW from coal)
Norwalk Harbor Station (342 MW from oil)
Salem Harbor Station (749 MW from oil and coal)
Vermont Yankee Station (604 MW from nuclear power)
These exits will make it more expensive for municipal utilities to acquire the energy needed to service their customers. The table below shows the impact these retirements are having on key components of the region’s overall energy costs.
After Election, Renewable Energy’s Future Remains in Doubt
Exerpt from The Exchange – A Yahoo! Finance Blog
By Tim Sprinkle | The Exchange
“The renewable-energy industry has been politicized so much that I don’t think anyone can see the long-term strategy anymore,” says Dean Musser, CEO of Tangent Energy Solutions. “It’s a boom and bust cycle right now.”
The problem, Musser explains, is that government incentives have created a “gold rush” mentality among many in the industry, with providers moving from state to state as credit programs are created, overbuilt and then allowed to expire. It’s a difficult model to sustain, especially for the startups that make up much of the cleantech industry, and it’s a poor fit with the traditionally stable energy sector. At the moment, for example, wind energy firms are facing down the expiration of the federal Production Tax Credit (or PTC) at the end of 2012, while solar manufacturers are waiting for the expiration of their credit in 2016. Whether or not either credit is renewed or retooled by Congress remains to be seen, making it difficult for companies to make strategic and long-term plans in the meantime.
“There is still money out there for projects,” Musser says, “but only for those of the highest quality. You have to make a real impact on your customers’ bills. Talking about a 1 percent savings on their energy bills won’t get anyone’s attention, but 10 percent to 15 percent savings, making real change, that’s how you can get business in this market.”
Colonial School District Partners with Tangent Energy Solutions to Actively Manage Energy Use
The Times Herald reports:
Tangent Energy Solutions has announced a three-year deal with Colonial School District, to provide a technology/service platform that actively manages the districts peak energy usage. The platform will reduce Colonials energy costs by approximately $166,400 over that period.
“Colonial is taking a very sophisticated approach to managing demand that was made possible by our ongoing partnership,” said Dave Turner, COO of Tangent Energy Solutions. “Terry (Yemm) and George (Donofry) of Colonial are ahead of most in understanding this concept, and the school district will benefit from their vision.”
Like the solar assets, the technology is provided at zero cost to the school.
Montgomery County Schools Outfitted for Solar Power by Tangent Energy Solutions
Christopher Wink of Technically Philly reports:
“Tangent Energy Solutions, the Kennett Square-based solar technology provider, launched last week solar energy generation installations at three Colonial School District schools in suburban Montgomery County.
The three schools are the sites for two separate solar energy projects; one at the Plymouth Whitemarsh High School/Elementary School Campus, and a second at the Colonial Middle School. Combined, the projects will provide CSD with more than 825,000 kWh per year of clean electricity, which annually saves more than 1.2 million pounds of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. CSD is projected to save more than $1.5 million over the course of the 20 years agreement.”
CIT Unveils Solar Project
Tom Coombe of the Easton Patch reports:
“The Career Institute of Technology is going solar.
The Forks Township technical school unveiled a set of solar panels Tuesday that educators say will save money and energy, and provide students with skills to someday become “green collar” workers.
Dave Turner, the COO for Tangent Energy — which installed the panels — said the set-up will also help educate CIT students on how to install solar systems. And as the green jobs field expands, its workers will need to know skills like carpentry and drafting, skills the CIT is already teaching.”
