A Boulder company has been awarded a $2 million National Science Foundation grant to build on its “smart grid” communications technologies.
Power Tagging was selected from thousands of companies so it can accelerate development of its eGRID database to support smart-grid standards being developed by the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, known as NIST.
The grant means the 2-year-old company will grow from five to six people to about 300 people in the next three years.
“We’ve been proving the technology and getting ready for market,” said Steve Berens of Power Tagging. Recruitment has begun for engineers qualified in signal processing, high-powered analog, and software development for applications.
Smart-grid technologies create automated two-way communication on the nation’s electrical grid through digital signals. The result is that utilities can better manage their systems and consumers can control energy use to save money.
“Power Tagging further extends the Colorado smart-grid ecosystem with NIST, NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) and the most-progressive green-tech and smart- grid projects in the country,” Gov. Bill Ritter said in a statement.
“Our state is creating the technologies that will allow all utilities to deliver power in a more reliable and affordable way,” Ritter said.
Potential customers include utilities and electric-car manufacturers.
Berens said the technology, which sends signals across the power grid, gives utilities a better idea of energy use, and allows utilities to quickly find weather-caused outages.
The technology also could be used to create a card similar to SIM cards in cellphones that would be installed in electric vehicles. Berens said the equipped vehicles can plug into places besides the owner’s home and be billed for the “fillups,” thus extending their range and the life of their pricey batteries.
Ann Schrader: 303-954-1967 or aschrader@denverpost.com
