October 18, 2010
By James Cartledge Send to a colleague | Print
Ice Energy says its technology could mean providing thousands of megawatts of peaking power for utilities when deployed at scale
Colorado-based thermal energy storage specialist Ice Energy has completed a $24 million Series C financing round.
The company said the investment would provide working and growth capital, supporting its expansion in the utility-scale market for energy storage projects in North America.
Among the projects it will support is the 53-megawatt system the company is currently developing for the Southern California Public Power Authority, the largest such project in the US.
Investors in the Series C round included new and existing players, including a $4.5 million private equity investment from financial services giant TIAA-CREF, made under a new Green Building Technology Partnership with investment firm Good Energies.
Other investors included Energy Capital Partners, Sail Ventures and Second Avenue Partners.
Frank Ramirez, CEO of Ice Energy, said the participation of his company’s investors was “tangible proof” of the “critical role” that energy storage technologies must play in the efficient operation of the US energy system.
Mr Ramirez said: “This latest investment gives us considerable resources to further develop our technology platform, explore new products, and rapidly expand our solution across a much wider set of customers.”
Technology
Ice Energy, which has its headquarters in Windsor, Colorado, provides systems that can store energy during off-peak periods when electricity prices are low, releasing it during peak hours.
It involves creating large volumes of ice during the night when electricity is cheap, which can then be used to support air conditioning systems during the day when electricity is expensive, reducing the power demand from a building’s cooling systems.
Ice Energy states that for commercial buildings, its technology has the capability to shift as much as 40% of the peak energy demand into off-peak hours.
As well as saving energy costs for the building operators themselves, this kind of thermal energy storage system can also dampen the demand levels for electricity on the grid itself, reducing the need for extra fossil fuel power stations to be brought on line to cope with spikes in electricity consumption.
Ice Energy suggests that deployed at scale, the technology could mean “thousands of megawatts” of peaking power capacity for utilities.
Cherie Santos-Wuest, director of TIAA-CREF’s Global Social & Community Investments, one of the investors in the Series C round, said: “Advanced energy storage is a crucial part of the new clean energy economy, and Ice Energy’s technology is at the forefront in terms of cost-effectiveness, scalability and reliability.”
