Sooner or later, the smart grid dollars flowing from Uncle Sam's pockets will run out and business models had better be in place to "support load-responsive technologies," CPower CEO Gary Fromer told us recently. That could be seen as a self-serving statement from the head of an energy management and DR firm but it is a perspective worth reporting -- in part since a VC and "green tech" conference this month chose CPower and Locust Storage as the winners of its first innovation competition.
The event, called GreenBeat, picked CPower's offering even though the firm's "predominant innovation is a business model," not a technology, Fromer said. Locust makes a low-power storage unit for data centers, he added.