In February 2009, The NYC Next Idea competition was announced by the city of New York, as part of a suite of initiatives dedicated to strengthening New York City ’s entrepreneurial community. Fifteen leading business and engineering universities from countries across Asia, Latin America, and Europe signed up to participate in NYC Next Idea 2009-2010, and ten teams submitted final proposals. The three teams of finalists representing business and engineering schools in France , Spain , and India were in New York City this week to present their plans.
The winner is Team Greenext Technology Solutions from the Indian Insitute of Technology Madras, located in Chennai, India. They devised a new system to allow utility companies and energy producers to store and distribute energy through remote sites across the five boroughs safely and efficiently, and were selected by a panel of judges from New York City ’s venture capital community to receive a $20,000 cash prize. The team members are Aashish Dattani, Sriram Kalyanaraman and Vinayshankar Kulkarni.
Greenext Technology Solutions is a clean-technology proposal that is pioneering specialized software and hardware solutions to utility companies, renewable energy producers, energy storage manufacturers, and energy traders. Their product, XEstor, serves as a common interface to store energy from any source across New York City into large battery storage sites. The product communicates with the electric grid and combines real-time consumer demand information with current energy prices to charge or discharge electricity into the grid. This flexible mechanism to produce or store energy based on demand can act as a backup power source to bridge supply gaps and maintain the grid’s reliability through ancillary services such as regulation and emergency response.
