Toronto, June 11, 2012 — Ontario Energy Minister Chris Bentley announced that Ottawa-based Energate, Inc., a provider of demand response, won an investment of $2.8 million from Ontario’s Smart Grid Fund.
The investment, with an in-kind match from Energate that totals $5.6 million, is for a “Consumer Engagement for the Smart Grid” demonstration project of smart energy innovations for up to 1000 homes across Ontario during the next 18 months.
Energate will partner with local distribution companies throughout the province to implement the program that is expected to commercialize Energate products and technology for broad consumer use in the smart grid.
The project will provide and evaluate solutions that allow consumers to manage and control their home energy use with smart thermostats, mobile smartphone applications, energy “dashboards” and Web portals.
Specifically, the project will build upon Energate’s Consumer-Connected Demand Response platform: a platform that has been approved for the Ontario peaksaver PLUS program and is currently being deployed in some regions of the province.
Participants using Energate’s technology in pilots were able to reduce their coincident peak demand by 50 percent and in some cases reduce their overall monthly bill by up to 30 percent. The technology to be deployed in the SGF demonstration project will allow LDCs to experiment with new approaches to make their distribution grid more efficient.
