PlotWatt wins Ecomagination Challenge, gets $1M

Faith Merino · June 23, 2011 · Short URL: https://vator.tv/n/1bf1

The company raises $1M in seed funding from Felicis Ventures

There really is nothing more frustrating than getting a surprise bill in the mail. Maybe waiting in the line at the DMV for an hour only to get up to the counter to be told that you were supposed to bring your mother’s birth certificate and your dental records would be more frustrating, but not by much. One of the bills that always seems to be the most mysterious is the electric bill. Aside from avoiding heating and air conditioning, your options for reducing your monthly electric bill are pretty limited, which is a problem PlotWatt is looking to solve. And on Thursday, the company announced that it not only won the GE Ecomagination Challenge, for which it received a $100,000 grant, but that it has also raised $1 million in a round of seed funding led by Felicis Ventures.

The Durham, North Carolina-based company is taking a new approach to monitoring energy consumption. True, that’s what meters are for, but while your meter will tell you how much energy you’re using, it doesn’t tell you where you’re using the most energy or how you could cut back. Enter PlotWatt. The company has developed algorithms to analyze smart meter data in real-time to translate energy consumption into dollars spent on an individual appliance level.

The PlotWatt software compiles this data into an easy-to-read table showing how much energy you’re using on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis, and how much that energy costs per appliance.

For example, for someone like me who has no concept of what a kilowatt actually is in real terms, PlotWatt will dumb it down for me and tell me point blank that my refrigerator costs $3 a week to run. Aside from getting a more energy-efficient fridge, I can’t really change that (although it does show me how much I’d be spending if I chose to get a second refrigerator for my garage just for beer). But for appliances that I can run less often—like the dishwasher, dryer, and air conditioner—PlotWatt’s table can come in pretty handy.

PlotWatt also recently launched a Commercial Energy Platform for multi-location establishments, such as chain restaurants, to help users identify more efficient ways to consume energy. The Commercial Energy Platform delivers analysis and recommendations via email, Web, and mobile that will help users save at least 10% on their monthly electricity bills.

The company plans to use the new funds to rapidly scale its platform to serve both commercial and residential markets. 

Image source: PlotWatt.com

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