UK smart grid company locks in £5.8M for expansion

London-based RLtec said today it has raised £5.8 million ($9.2 million) from Low Carbon Accelerator, Naxos Capital Partners and Carbon Trust Investment Partners, the venture capital arm of the Carbon Trust.

RLtec has developed software it says offers energy balancing services to national grid operators, industrial consumers, power suppliers, and appliance manufacturers.

The funding is expected to help RLtec expand into new, unspecified geographies in 2010, as well as continuing its UK growth.

The company says its technology displaces high-carbon emitting generation with lower-carbon alternatives and helps to facilitate the integration of renewable energy into the grid.

The UK is already working to curb carbon emissions 34 percent by meet 2020 targets (see U.K. introduces new energy bill and U.K. unveils clean energy plan). 

The company says its technology could create virtual power stations, and if widely used in the UK could eliminate the need for carbon emitting balancing stations, while saving up to 2 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.

The software can be incorporated into the control unit of electrical appliances without affecting performance, according to RLtec.

The company says appliances fitted with its demand response technology automatically modify their power consumption in response to supply and demand on the grid. The software also works with renewable energy sources, including wind, solar, wave and tidal power generation.

RLtec’s products have been deployed in the UK, the United States, certain European Union member states, and developing nations including South Africa.

RLtec recently made the Cleantech Group and Guardian’s Global Cleantech 100 list in the energy efficiency category (see Surprises abound in first Global Cleantech 100 ranking).

Earlier this month, the Carbon Trust funded another technology that helps to reduce carbon emissions. The technology from UK-based Amarinth is expected to provide a more cost-efficient and rapid process to manufacture impellers, which are used in industrial pumping applications (see Carbon Trust backs energy-efficient pumping technology).

The Carbon Trust is an independent company set up and funded by the UK government to help accelerate commercialization of low carbon technologies.

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