EG's Voltserver Lands Innovation Grant

Voltserver of East Greenwich recently was awarded a $44,973 state grant from the Rhode Island Small Business Fund.

The money will be used to help the company “speed the adoption of solid state lighting in commercial buildings by using a safe and efficitent method for distributing high voltage power and high bandwith communications,” a release stated.

So what exactly does that mean?

Voltserver CEO Steve Eaves would explain by saying the company, located at 42 Ladd St. in Greenwich Mills, is the first to digitize power. Imagine connecting lights in a building the same way you connect computers and digital devices to the network.

It’s called Packet Energy Transfer, or PET, and the technology allows power to be distributed in much the same way that digital information is distributed.

Hundreds of watts of power can be safely sent along network cables, allowing for streamlined wiring, ultra-high efficiency and limitless possibility.

“Imagine if high voltage electricity was safe to touch,” the company’s Web site proposes. Today, “electrical power is still distributed much like it was during the days of Tesla and Edison. The revolution behind Packet Energy Transfer is the digitization and management of electrical power in discrete packets that contain both energy and data. But no single packet contains enough energy to harm a person or damage a power line.”

The system would work by the power plant assigning a unique verification signature to each packet of power, which makes it easy to confirm if and when it arrives. Suppose someone or a tree touches a wire carrying the energy packets.

“a verification signature within the packet is corrupted and the power is discontinued or rerouted in microseconds; leaving the person unharmed and the power grid undamaged.”

Today, the technology is mainly being used with cell towers for mobile network operators and is in the beta test phase.

The grant, announced jointly by the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation and the Rhode Island Science and Technology Advisory Council, is one of six grants recently awarded totaling $269,963 in funds from the Innovate RI Fund and will leverage $1.02 million in federal funds.

“Through the Innovate RI Fund, Commerce RI and STAC are helping research-driven, small businesses to thrive in Rhode Island,” said Marcel A. Valois, executive director of Commerce RI. “These companies are conducting ground-breaking work to solve real-world problems. With our support, they are able to accomplish that work right here in Rhode Island.”

The grants are the results of the first call for applications for fiscal 2015 and $90,000 remains in the fund until June 30 of next year. The next call for applications will be posted in January.

Here’s how the fund works: Through the Innovate RI Fund, eligible Rhode Island small businesses may apply for grants to defray the cost of applying for federal Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) awards, match SBIR/STTR Phase I awards and hire interns. Each company has received a competitive Phase I SBIR/STTR grant from the federal government to develop a technology that is of interest to a federal agency.

Last year, eight companies received $359,880 in state grants to leverage $1,424,592 in federal SBIR/STTR Phase I awards. Two of these companies, CREmedical and Vision Systems, have received SBIR/STTR Phase II awards totaling an additional $1,250,000 in federal funding.

Photo Courtesy: Voltserver via www.voltserver.com