Tantalus: Cleantech innovator revolutionizes electrical grids
When extreme weather roared across Texas in February 2021, bringing Canadian-style winter temperatures that caused power outages to roughly 4.5 million homes and businesses, it was the perfect storm to overwhelm the state’s electrical grid.
Utilities in Texas were already under stress from its population growth, but energy-hungry data centres and crypto-mining operations also contended with the burden of everyday devices—electric vehicles (EVs), residential solar installations, smart homes loaded with security and monitoring systems, millions of mobile phones, streaming services and other modern conveniences that rely on electricity.
Between increasing electricity demand and an aging infrastructure that wasn’t prepared to respond to extreme weather conditions, Texas faced an unprecedented power crisis. It led to sustained power outages that damaged properties and caused significant economic losses and deaths across the state.
Fast-forward to 2024: Extreme weather patterns continue to wreak havoc across the world, demand for reliable electricity continues to increase, electric rates are skyrocketing and grid infrastructure remains outdated.
With the stakes so high, Canadian technology company, Tantalus Systems, is helping utilities across North America modernize their distribution grids and avoid a repeat of the 2021 blackouts in Texas—and other mass outages.
Real-world impact
Headquartered in Burnaby, BC, Tantalus was named an Export Development Canada (EDC) Export Star during EDC’s annual cleantech event in 2020. The company creates technology that helps utilities modernize their electric distribution grids, so they can leverage data to manage their power supply more effectively, monitor and prevent outages and offer more innovative and reliable service to their communities.
Its TRUFlex Protect solution allows smart grid systems, like outage management, to remain functional during extreme weather, or other disruptions, by rolling out planned and co-ordinated electricity outages.
During the 2021 winter storm, Utilities & Public Works in Farmersville, Texas manually utilized remote disconnect meters through Tantalus’ system to ensure customers weren’t left in the cold and dark during ensuing power outages. Now, TRUFlex Protect automates the process for them. By shedding the electric load in a controlled manner, the utility can navigate through emergency situations and significantly reduce its electric load.
“The results have been fantastic, with all the same benefits and more, but with very little effort or risk,” says Ben White, Farmersville’s city manager and Public Works director. “Nobody wants to implement rotating blackouts, but TRUFlex Protect is the insurance policy we need when we have no other choice.”
Data-driven decisions for grid resiliency
In addition to dealing with challenges from wild weather and increasing power outages, utility companies worldwide must also struggle with how to manage the increasing demand for electricity in today’s digital age while reducing their carbon footprint and relying on aging infrastructure.
The answer, says Peter Londa, president and CEO of Tantalus Systems, is data—and the latest Tantalus innovation, TRUSense Gateway.
Installed between an existing electric meter and a meter socket, the multi-purpose device gathers a game-changing amount of data about electric consumption and power quality measurements from electric vehicles (EVs), intelligent water heaters and circuit breakers, solar and storage inverters and other connected devices.
Through the TRUSense Gateway, utilities not only leverage information about electric demand on the grid, but also the health of grid infrastructure through advanced data analytics that leverage artificial intelligence (AI).
“What happens when a homeowner purchases an EV, installs roof-top solar, or a tree limb hits a power line during high winds? What impact do those situations have on a utility’s ability to deliver reliable power to their consumers?” asks Londa.
“Our TRUSense Gateway captures millisecond disruptions in power in order to look at patterns over periods of time and during various events. By capturing and analyzing data, utilities can proactively make adjustments, install protection equipment to ensure small issues—such as a squirrel biting through the insulation of a power line—don’t become large problems,” he says. “It’s not just about having access to data, but the data analytics and controls to make adjustments based on what’s unfolding.”
The system works with any existing meter, so utilities are spared the costs and complexity of ripping and replacing existing infrastructure. “It’s an innovative and cost-effective way to accelerate grid modernization,” Londa says.
Increased demand and aging infrastructure
Rodents aside, the greater issue is that electricity consumption has risen significantly for the first time in 50 years, sparked by the rise of data centres, the adoption of EVs, an increasing number of devices requiring power and the rapid adoption of AI.
A Stanford University study found that one of the world’s most popular AI chatbots requires 25 times more electricity than a regular search engine. A 2023 peer-reviewed analysis also found that 1.5 million AI server units slated for production by tech multinational NVIDIA will use 85.4 terawatt hours by 2027—more than what most small countries use in a year.
The surge in demand creates vulnerabilities for utilities managing digital-era usage with decades-old infrastructure.
“For example, every time I charge my EV, I’m effectively doubling the amount of power being consumed in my home. This puts immediate pressure on the pole-top transformer that feeds power to the homes on my block,” he says. “The utility servicing my home didn’t plan for this when installing the transformer back in the late 1980s.”
By analyzing and storing data coming from consumers and throughout the grid, utilities can adjust how they operate, proactively plan, maintain and repair their infrastructure and even offer consumers innovative ways to use electricity.
“By capturing data from the very edge of the grid and running analytics based on parameters, including weather patterns, we can prudently utilize machine learning to help utilities become more resilient and reliable,” Londa says.
Tantalus analytics dashboard
If a utility can predict outages, prepare for peak demand and identify failing assets, they can take action and alert customers in advance of potential outages, he says.
Since being named an EDC Cleantech Export Star in 2020, Tantalus has grown considerably and recently reported increasing sales orders by 46% in the first six months of 2024, compared to the same period the previous year.
For the past seven years, EDC has recognized five innovative cleantech companies—three “Export Stars” and two “Ones to Watch”—for their outstanding achievement in cleantech sectors and environmental solutions. On Oct. 29, EDC will be announcing the 2024 honorees at our Cleantech Export Summit. The theme of this year’s hybrid event is Towards net zero: Global opportunities for Canadian cleantech.
For Londa, EDC’s recognition and ongoing support are a critical part of Tantalus’ growth plans and a recent acquisition.
Plugging into the future with support from EDC
EDC’s support for Tantalus includes backstopping receivables from utilities outside of Canada with accounts receivable insurance, as well as providing a comprehensive debt facility to support the commercialization of the TRUSense Gateway and working capital flexibility.
In 2022, with EDC’s support, Tantalus closed a US$8-million purchase of Congruitive, a software firm whose signature C.IQ Connect software application, now called TRUSync Grid Data Management, will be critical in helping utilities prepare for more EVs and distributed energy resources (DERs), including solar and battery storage.
The software works like a translator, says Londa, in that it takes data from various devices and systems—regardless of vendor—and sends the information gathered to the right system at the right time behind a utility’s firewall.
By untangling and interpreting the matrix of old and new tech, Tantalus provides invaluable tools for utilities by establishing a platform that works as one intelligent, inter-operable system. It also enables the company to expand further into the U.S. and the Caribbean, as well as Canada.
With more than 300 customers, Londa says one of the biggest hurdles isn’t the potential for growth, but ensuring the company builds upon its processes and systems to execute.
“There’s so much opportunity to help utilities modernize the distribution grid—and we see paths to expand globally where electric standards align to the ones in Canada and the United States,” he says. “With ongoing support from EDC, we’ll evaluate international expansion as we continue to scale the company.”
How EDC helps
EDC’s cleantech team supports Canadian companies, like Tantalus Systems, with international expansion in several ways:
- EDC’s Export Guarantee Program (EGP) offers risk-sharing guarantees to Canadian banks for secured loans, allowing companies to extend lines of credit to increase working capital or finance work in progress.
- The Account Performance Security Guarantee (APSG) and Foreign Exchange Facility Guarantee (FXG) are financial solutions that replace collateral needs for banks for standby letters of credit or foreign exchange contracts.
- EDC also offers direct loans to well-established, commercialized cleantech companies to expand operations, fund work-in-progress costs, and enter new markets.
- Companies with revenues greater than $500,000 and a lead investor can also access up to $10 million in additional capital through the EDC Investment Matching Program.
- EDC can support, arrange and underwrite financing for large-scale cleantech projects through our Structured and Project Finance solution.
For more information about Canada’s cleantech sector, including top players at home and abroad, global trends and cleantech investment patterns, read our report, Canadian cleantech: Powering Progress.
