Craton Equity Partners Invests in 'Smart Grid' Company GridPoint

LOS ANGELES, March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Craton Equity Partners, a leading Southern California clean technology fund, has made an undisclosed capital commitment to GridPoint, Inc., an Arlington, Virginia-based leading smart grid company whose software platform benefits electric utilities, consumers and the environment.

GridPoint is working with investor-owned utilities such as Duke Energy and Xcel Energy. GridPoint's comprehensive platform provides smart grid solutions including energy efficiency, load management, renewable energy management, energy storage management and electric vehicle management.

The GridPoint platform applies information technology to the electric grid to provide utilities with an intelligent network that controls load, stores energy and produces power. The platform also offers utilities a single interface for managing distributed energy assets, including plug-in electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines, advanced batteries and household devices such as thermostats and electric water heaters. During peak periods, utilities can efficiently balance supply and demand by discharging stored power from distributed generation assets or reducing customers' non-essential loads.

"GridPoint is not only participating in what has emerged as a major market for energy efficiency and conservation, but has actually helped to create the market that exists today," said Bob MacDonald, a Managing Partner of Craton Equity Partners. "With an early lead on the competition, GridPoint is already demonstrating its ability to anticipate and meet the rapidly changing needs of utilities in an era of flux, uncertainty, and increasing pressure to achieve environmental milestones," added Tom Soto, Managing Partner of Craton.

Smart grid technology is increasingly being recognized for its potential to work synergistically with the expansion of renewable energy generation and distributed generation. Craton expects that any substantial growth in clean energy production or funding to energy efficiency initiatives will consequently create opportunities in this space. This sector can be one of the single biggest contributors to carbon reduction, helping to solve the climate change crisis while at the same time saving hard-earned dollars for ratepayers, and providing excellent returns for investors.

"Craton's knowledge and expertise in the utility and regulatory arena are unmatched, and that can only help GridPoint secure greater market advantage," said Peter L. Corsell, founder and CEO of GridPoint.

Craton Equity Partners (http://cratonep.com/) is a leading Southern California clean tech fund, focused on bringing to market technologies that mitigate the effects of climate change and environmental degradation. Craton's investments include green building products, earth heat exchange projects, smart grid technologies and next-generation biofuels. Craton is one of the country's leading voices on sustainable investing and using investment models to respond effectively to the urgent environmental challenges of our time.

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