Ice Energy LLC tech startup of the month.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: Ice Energy LLC - Company overview

INITIAL LIGHTBULB

Greg Tropsa was running a firm that monetized low-quality natural gas on the East Coast a few years ago when he came across a small company based in Powell, Ohio, with an interesting, albeit untapped, piece of intellectual property.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The company, Powell Energy Products, had developed and patented an energy-storage device in the early 1990s that freezes tap water at night--off-peak for the electricity industry--then uses the ice to make for less expensive, more efficient air conditioning during the day.

Tropsa approached his neighbor in Fort Collins, Frank Ramirez, a former investment banker then with a Front Range "inside-the-fence power company." They immediately sought to answer a burning question: "How strong is the IP?" Ramirez's answer: rock-solid patents that had been maintained for a decade while the technology was mothballed.

"It's almost as if we discovered a tomb of riches that hadn't been pilfered by tomb robbers," he laughed. "It was almost too good to be true."

Ramirez and Tropsa struck a licensing deal to commercialize the technology via Ice Energy LLC, and now serve respectively as CEO and president of the 45-employee company.

IN A NUTSHELL

"What's little understood by many is that every summer across the United States--and especially in the desert Southwest--there are recurring and near-crisis energy shortages due to surges in electric power driven by heat waves," said Ramirez. "Air conditioning is the root cause of the peak demand problem. It doubles the peak demand for electricity on a typical summer day."

Ice Energy's response: The Ice Bear, the market's first energy-storage module, freezing 500 gallons of tap water at night when temperatures are coolest and electricity is cheapest and greenest. The $10,000 units "complement" existing technology, Ramirez said. "Customers don't have to replace their existing condensing units, fans, evaporator coils or thermostats."

The Ice Bear consists of a plastic water-storage tank that measures about 5 feet on each side and weighs less than 5,000 pounds when filled with tap water. In a typical 24-hour cycle, the water is converted to a solid block of ice and then back to water. During evening or off-peak hours, a compressor/ condenser the size of a standard residential rooftop air conditioning unit is used to freeze the water. In the daytime, refrigerant is pumped by a 100-watt motor to standard evaporator coils.

Ramirez touts the unit's ability...