R.I. in race for renewable energy

SUPER CHARGED: Steve Evans, CEO of VoltServer, said the company likes to brand itself “as the creator of the first form of digital power.” Thorne Sparkman, managing director of the Slater Technology Fund, called the company “groundbreaking.” / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
SUPER CHARGED: Steve Evans, CEO of VoltServer, said the company likes to brand itself “as the creator of the first form of digital power.” Thorne Sparkman, managing director of the Slater Technology Fund, called the company “groundbreaking.” / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

Rhode Island is at the starting line of deploying renewable energy with some potentially dramatic breakthrough technologies on the horizon, according to Thorne Sparkman, managing director of the Slater Technology Fund.
“Within our borders, we have a miniscule amount of wind, a tiny amount of solar and a small amount of hydropower,” said Sparkman. “It’s a drop in the bucket. It’s way behind, but we’re headed in the right direction.”
On the groundbreaking side is work being done by Enhanced Energy Group, an energy-technology startup that’s commercializing technologies developed at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport, Sparkman said.
Among other breakthrough renewable energy projects are those being done by Providence-based VCharge, with software that “… helps integrate renewable energy into the grid,” and by East Greenwich-based VoltServer, “… which has invented a new kind of digital electricity,” said Sparkman.
“These are dramatically new things, new in their class and each, in its own way, has a chance to make a dramatic impact on the energy landscape,” said Sparkman. “I’ve been all over the country and what excites me about Rhode Island is that on this end of the energy spectrum, people here are doing something game-changing.”
Bordering Massachusetts, one of the most advanced states in the development of energy technology, tends to suggest comparison. But for a small state, Rhode Island is making progress toward potentially dramatic energy technology, Sparkman said.
When it comes to changing the energy landscape, “The EEG project represents a new way to generate electricity, capture the CO2 and sell it to the petroleum industry,” Sparkman said.
The Slater Technology Fund announced $100,000 in funding to EEG on July 29.
“Normally, CO2 is causing greenhouse gases and that’s why our planet is heating up,” Sparkman said. The EEG project would capture carbon dioxide in a pure, pressurized form.
“It creates a sellable product” without creating greenhouse gases, he said. “The petroleum industry uses it in the oil patch. They fire it into the ground to force the oil out. It’s called enhanced oil recovery,” he said. “This is a dramatic, new business model, but we have to prove out the technology and find new customers,” said Sparkman.
“We’re using a semi-closed cycle, unlike a normal engine where fuel is burned and the products of combustion are vented into the atmosphere,” said Enhanced Energy Group founder and Chief Technology Officer Paul Dunn.
“Within the field of carbon capture, we know of no other technologies that capture carbon without reducing the efficiency of the engine they are capturing it from, or requiring power from another source,” said Dunn.
South Kingstown-based EEG was formed in 2011 and evolved from Dunn’s innovations while he worked at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center in Newport.
“I’m the inventor of the Navy patents that we’ve licensed. We have the exclusive licenses for these patents in the U.S.,” said Dunn.
When it comes to changing the energy landscape, East Greenwich-based VoltServer is creating dramatic new forms with its Packet Energy Transfer.
“We like to brand ourselves as the creator of the first form of digital power,” said VoltServer CEO Steve Eaves. “We’ve taken conventional power and digitized it.
“Packet Energy Transfer takes conventional energy and breaks it up into small, digital components and we address each component with a routing code,” said Eaves. “The routing code is generated at the power source, which could be a power plant, and when it arrives at its destination, let’s say a house or factory, that bit of power is verified.”
The company’s current focus is on telecommunications to power small cellular installations, where the VoltServer technology can be mounted on buildings or telephone poles, he said. Another key market is in building lighting.
“We can power lights in buildings off an Ethernet cable and distribute it into the building in a digital format,” said Eaves.
VoltServer got a $2 million boost of venture capital in June, with $500,000 of that from the Slater Technology Fund and $1.5 million in private equity, said Eaves.
VoltServer moved from its Charlestown location to expanded space in East Greenwich in July, growing from two to six full-time employees.
Improving the performance of what’s considered the outdated and sluggishly evolving grid is the goal of some Rhode Island innovators. One company confronting that issue is VCharge, with its technology to integrate energy from renewable sources, especially challenging because of the intermittent nature of the energy.
“We manage the storage of wind and solar energy so it can more easily be integrated on the electric grid,” said VCharge CEO George Baker. “We manage the aggregation and storage of energy.”
VCharge has hundreds of customers in Pennsylvania using storage heaters that allow them to save up to 25 percent on their heating costs, Baker said.
“The heaters allow you to buy electric when it’s cheap and abundant. It’s a form of a battery,” said Baker.
VCharge has had such good results from its pilot project in Pennsylvania that it’s expanded and has some customers in Concord, Mass., and in Maine.
Providence-based Utilidata is also focusing its innovative technology on the grid.
“Utilidata is trying to automate the processes and systems for the delivery of power to make it more efficient and make the control of electricity more intelligent,” Utilidata Chairman and CEO Scott DePasquale said in a July interview with Providence Business News.
Utilidata’s technology is being used on a commercial scale by American Electric Power for its operations in several states.
Algae-based energy innovations are also picking up steam in the Ocean State, with highlights such as Portsmouth-based BioProcess Algae LLC getting up to $6.4 million in funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, announced in April, for development of fuel for military use.
The funding was one of four awards for “innovative pilot-scale biorefineries … that will test renewable biofuels … that meet military specifications for jet fuel and shipboard diesel,” according to the DOE press release.
BioProcess Algae has its corporate headquarters and engineering operations in Portsmouth and runs a demonstration project at the Green Plains Renewable Energy, Inc. ethanol plant in Shenandoah, Iowa. Bioreactors installed at the Iowa facility are tied directly into the plant’s CO2 exhaust gas and have been operating continuously since 2009. BioProcess Algae uses a unique production platform to increase productivity and decrease the costs associated with traditional algae production,” said Toby Ahrens, senior scientist for the company.”We see big advantages to growing algae in biofilms. Our algae grow by attaching to a substrate that we manufacture here in Rhode Island, and the material is ideally suited for microbial growth.” Growing the algae on a substrate, or solid material, rather than in liquid distinguishes BioProcess Algae from others in the field, said Ahrens.
At Warwick-based eNow, President and CEO Jeff Flath is pushing along the leading edge of solar technology. ENow’s solar panels for trucks provide power for refrigeration, heating and air conditioning, laptops and cellphone recharging. The solar power means trucks don’t have to idle, which is good for the environment and for a transportation company’s bottom line.
Flath’s company, which launched in May 2011, is getting a $1 million loan from RBS Citizens Bank, backed the R.I. Economic Development Corporation’s Job Creation Guaranty Program.
As a stipulation of the loan, eNow must create 10 new full-time jobs, which will nearly double its workforce.
The eNow solar-based systems are being used by transportation companies across the country, including East Greenwich-based Arpin International, a global moving company, as well as in two other strategic marketing partnerships.
ENow is the only energy company to have participated in the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation’s Job Creation Guaranty Program, EDC spokesman Mike Blazek said in an email.
The program was repealed by the General Assembly as part of the state’s fiscal 2014 budget, said Blazek. Agreements entered into prior to the repeal will remain in effect, he said.
EDC also manages the state’s Renewable Energy Fund, which is funding a wide range of projects. For calendar year 2013, the Renewable Energy Fund allocated $4.25 million for four segments of energy programs: small-scale solar, $1.5 million; commercial-scale renewable, $1 million; early-stage commercialization, $1 million; and predevelopment projects, $750,000. •

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