Alektrona building bridge to making ‘smart’ profits

CROSSING THE BRIDGE: Christopher Leidigh, left, president, and James Higgins, vice president, of Alektrona Corp. see a future in “smart grid” technology. /
CROSSING THE BRIDGE: Christopher Leidigh, left, president, and James Higgins, vice president, of Alektrona Corp. see a future in “smart grid” technology. /

Once upon a time, there were few options to regulating the heat in a home other than adjusting a thermostat by hand. In today’s energy-conscious world, a homeowner relaxing on a Caribbean beach can whip out a smartphone to check the temperature of their empty house and adjust the heat accordingly.
For the command to work a host of equipment and software – typically from different manufacturers – must play seamlessly together in fractions of a second. Building the bridge to these otherwise incompatible parts is an area that one Providence company views as a growing, and potentially lucrative, opportunity.
Four-year-old Alektrona Corp. ramped up its foray into “smart grid” technology last month with a formal initiative to partner with manufacturers of everything from washing machines to thermostats. Company executives ultimately hope the program lands Alektrona-designed software and hardware in everyday products made by some of the biggest corporate names in America.
“We don’t like to think of it as we’re going up against the big companies, rather we’re filling the piece they’re not doing or not doing well,” Vice President James Higgins said.
Alektrona has reached out to about 10 companies looking to forge formal partnerships and is in discussions with several of them.
Alektrona is racing to put its foot in the door as major corporations seek ways to provide better command over their products to consumers and mollify utilities fretting about increasing loads that strain their systems.
Alektrona is not necessarily breaking new ground. Standards for interpretability already exist – Alektrona helped create them – but President Christopher Leidigh said his startup still has a lot to offer.
Standards work only if someone ensures that when individual companies upgrade their products they still meet the standard. And some users may want additional customization. Alektrona’s entire five-person staff comes from American Power Conversion, where Leidigh and Higgins led a group that developed how power sources communicated with computer equipment.
The company they started received a major boost in 2009 when the Slater Technology Fund invested $250,000 in Series A financing. Alektrona raised another $260,000 on its own. With the Slater investment, the company gained access to prominent investors and advisers, including the former chief information officer of the utility NStar.
The company will likely need to fight to stand out in what is rapidly becoming a crowded market focused around the home-area networks that connect various energy-consuming devices. In a February report, GTM Research projected that the market would grow from $400 million to more than $750 million in 2015.
“Everybody wants it because it’s where we’re going. It’s the smart home. It’s the more intelligent living situation,” said David Leeds, who heads GTM’s smart-grid research group.
A lot, however, needs to happen first, say Leeds and executives at Alektrona. To maximize the ability for consumers and utilities to manage electricity use, utilities must roll out smart meters to millions of homes across the United States. That’s happening already in places such as California and Texas, but in Rhode Island, homes still typically carry traditional meters.
Regulations also need to change. Power-monitoring systems like those by Alektrona could be designed to encourage consumers to turn on energy-intense appliances during off-peak hours. Or technology could allow a dishwasher to start automatically at such times. But first officials throughout the country need to allow utilities to charge residences different prices depending on the time of day – something not allowed in most of the country. &#8226

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