Clean Tech Venture Brings $500,000 Contract and New Jobs To Bay of Quinte
Written by: Nick Belmont, Communications Specialist Community Futures of Prince Edward Lennox Addington
A local clean tech company has landed a half-million-dollar contract to help manage energy costs for buildings owned and leased by the Department of Public Works and Government Services – Ontario Region that will manage costs for taxpayers, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and create high-skilled local jobs.
The $500,000 contract comes with the opportunity to use digitalization and innovation to manage government buildings and was awarded through the Built in Canada Innovation Program (BCIP), which awards federal contracts to new Canadian technology start-ups in an effort to stimulate innovation and strengthen the country’s middle class.
The contract underlines how the Bay of Quinte is leading a rural renaissance underway across Eastern Ontario as federal investments in innovation prepare local communities for the economy of the future and create good jobs that attract skilled workers and allow youth to stay close to home and get quality employment opportunities.
“Creating good quality local jobs is a top priority and investments like this are helping more Canadians join the middle class. Innovators create the jobs of tomorrow and they can be found here in the Bay of Quinte. Forward-thinking businesses like Screaming Power will continue to be innovators and job creators,” said Member of Parliament for Bay of Quinte Neil Ellis.
The deal is a big win for Screaming Power, which has been busy organizing staff to work on the contract and expects to use the contract as a spring board to roll out across Canada and internationally. Their Mobile Building Energy Management and Green House Gas (GHG) Solution is a cloud-based mobile application that digitizes siloed information to allow building owners, management, and operations work together to monitor, manage, and reduce building energy costs.
BCIP is a federal program that aims to support Canadian innovations. Successful contracts are awarded to innovators that can solve challenges facing government department and agencies. BCIP directly funds early stage enterprises, pre-commercial research and development, late stage prototypes, and accelerated commercialization. With the express goal of creating scalable, Canadian solutions to address widespread areas of opportunity, BCIP is a core element of the Innovation and Skills Plan and is intended to create jobs in high-value technical and professional fields.
Gary Michor, CEO of Screaming Power Inc., is looking to use data to solve energy and emissions problems. The solution uses a mobile device and cloud infrastructure to manage large amounts of data regarding energy use, the building, local weather, and overall GHG emissions. “We can use the data we collect to identify the impact of green initiatives and new opportunities, particularly for large organizations with hundreds or thousands of buildings – saving them a lot of time and money,” says Michor. Tracking and analyzing centralized data will continue to power future innovations.
The data is analyzed by a machine-learning algorithm that supports real-time decision making. The solution automates the processes required for GHG reporting on buildings and more accurately tracks energy savings against customer-defined benchmarks to support conservation activities and Continuous Energy Improvement programs. Built by Canadian programmers, analysts, and energy experts, Screaming Power Inc., is growing at a steady pace, doubling the number of its employees since 2015. Michor expects to triple the number of its current employees by 2022.
“This is a game changer for the Bay of Quinte region. BCIP has made Screaming Power’s success possible and that will give them the opportunity to grow into a large local employer. Youth graduates from STEM disciplines will be able to find rewarding careers in the growing energy industry, right here in the Bay of Quinte,” said Trevor Brookes, social finance specialist with Community Futures of Prince Edward Lennox Addington.
Future investments in innovative companies and projects may continue to play a role in the future of rural economic development.
About Screaming Power Inc.
Screaming Power is revolutionizing customer engagement by providing a mobile platform that connects the energy user, allowing for effective and secure two-way communications to educate, change behaviour and encourage sustainability. Our extensible Intellectual Property provides a low-cost, digital infrastructure for a self-sustaining Eco-System. Our Scream Utility & Scream Enterprise mobile solutions focus on reducing ‘cost-to-service’ for utilities while driving satisfaction and facilitating the delivery of innovation (e.g., connectivity to the IoTs).