Demand response firm EnerNOC yesterday announced it will acquire Canadian data and analytics firm Pulse Energy. The deal highlights how energy companies – particularly in the utility sector, but also oil & gas – are increasingly becoming technology companies. “The acquisition is yet another example of how industries that previously weren’t driven by digital technology, connectivity and data, are now having to develop and adopt these tools and essentially have to become tech companies. If software is eating the world, as investor Marc Andreessen is famously quoted as saying, then any company that wants to manage, move, cut or generate energy will have to be a software company, too.” [Gigaom]
In a (somewhat) surprising announcement earlier this week, Russia said it would no longer pursue construction of the South Stream pipeline that would deliver Russian gas to Europe under the Black Sea. This Quartz article explains the history. Russia’s President Putin said Gazprom would instead look into building a pipeline and associated gas trading hub in Turkey, but many details have yet to be worked out. “But the plan is in the very preliminary stages and Yildiz said there has been no discussion of what stake Turkey would take in any project or of any contractual details. Turkey is looking at the proposal while it also plans for the arrival of increased volumes of Azeri gas and the possibility of other supplies from Iraq, Iran and the eastern Mediterranean, Yildiz said.” [Argus]
A microgrid/energy storage demonstration project undertaken by the US Navy and California Energy Commission opted to go with vanadium-flow battery technology. The CEC is sponsoring the project hosted at the Navy’s Mobile Utilities Support Equipment (MUSE) Facility in Port Hueneme, California, that also includes a solar PV installation. “Three Imergy ESP30 series vanadium-based flow batteries will be incorporated into the project, which will also feature a 50 kW PV solar panel system and GELI’s Energy Operating System (EOS) to automate the multiple applications. The ESP30 series has a capacity of up to 50 kilowatts (kW) and can store up to 200 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity.” [Imergy]
