North American Clean Energy: Maplewell and Urban Electric Power Form Strategic Partnership to Develop Virtual Power Plants
Maplewell Energy, a virtual power plant developer that optimizes behind-the-meter energy resources to create savings, add revenue, and offer grid services, and Urban Electric Power, a manufacturer of safe, rechargeable zinc batteries, announced a new strategic partnership.
Maplewell is developing virtual power plants throughout North America for commercial and industrial customers through a model known as Energy-as-a-Service. Maplewell’s cutting-edge energy management system (EMS), JANiiT, is unlocking demand flexibility at the grid edge for commercial, industrial, and government enterprises.
The new partnership will enable Maplewell and Urban Electric Power to provide commercial and industrial customers a turnkey battery energy storage system combined with the JANiiT platform. The solution will deliver demand charge management, demand response, and other grid services with load shifting, shedding, and modulation.
JANiiT provides real-time demand charge management and demand response for commercial and industrial buildings up to 250,000 square feet, providing customers demand response revenue and demand charge savings. JANiiT goes beyond a traditional building management or automation system to integrate forecasting, predictive control, and real-time, feedback-based optimization that is proactive instead of reactive.
Urban Electric Power has given new life to the century-old technology of zinc manganese-dioxide battery cells — the chemistry of familiar household AA alkaline batteries — through patented chemistry enhancements which make UEP batteries rechargeable for 10 years or more. That’s 50 times longer than when Ford Motors first tried recharging alkalines.
Urban Electric Power’s advanced battery technology offers several advantages. Unlike lithium batteries, the zinc alkaline batteries are certified by UL standards to pose no risk of thermal runaway, making them fire-safe for indoor installations. They contain no cobalt, whose mining in Africa carries human rights concerns and is subject to supply shortages. And they are more cost-effective than other energy storage solutions.