Leap is partnering with Armada Power, a leader in load management technology for electric water heaters, to expand access to grid services opportunities for their commercial and residential customers in California. We caught up with Eric Rehberg, Chief Engineer at Armada Power, to learn more about Armada’s mission, technology and approach to load flexibility. 

Q: Why was Armada founded? What role does Armada play in the energy transition?

A: We saw a need for a lower cost energy storage solution. There are a lot of places in the world that can't afford or don't have the space to put an expensive battery in place. We can take advantage of the storage that's already in appliances like water heaters, but make them a cohesive and secure load management system for the power grid. 

We founded Armada Power on a mission to make the power grid more reliable, renewable and cost effective. We believe that a highly renewable future is going to require a tremendous amount of storage and we should be using the most cost-effective storage available to us.

Armada Power also believes that the technology we deploy needs to be an economically viable solution as well. We create opportunities for load and storage to generate economic value for owners and operators. 

Q: What are the biggest challenges you have encountered when developing and scaling Armada’s technology?

A: As I'm sure you're aware, innovating in the energy sector is incredibly hard. It's not enough to have great technology, but you also have to convince a wide range of stakeholders. Building technology programs that can fit into the regulatory and economic model of electric utilities is often much harder than solving an engineering problem. 

We've been fortunate to have a team of highly experienced engineers from a wide range of backgrounds, including electric utility research, defense, health care, automotive etc. It has enabled us to manage around supply chain challenges from the pandemic, and be flexible in our software development capabilities. We work really well with our customers to understand their day-to-day operations and build user experiences that work for them.

Q: What are your goals for your demand response and grid services offerings?

A: We think every watt of power delivered to energy storage should work twice. That watt should deliver the work that consumers originally wanted it for, such as heating up their water, but it should also work as an on-demand resource for the power grid and be drawn right when it's needed to help with system stability or absorb zero carbon energy. 

Armada Power is really good at understanding the physics of the underlying electrical appliance and optimizing its behavior with a sub-second response time on a large scale to optimize the  operation of the power grid. 

Q: Why did you decide to partner with Leap for energy market access? How does partnering with Leap help advance your mission?

A: Like any business, we're always looking for new ways to reach more market share. Leap provides an "easy button" for us to access new markets. It's a similar business strategy as dealing with a wholesale distributor vs stocking your own retail shelf. Leap provides a nice platform for integration, good documentation and knowledgeable account managers. 

Q: What’s next for Armada Power? 

A: ALL THE THINGS!

We see substantial opportunity for growth in the energy transition. Armada has patented and available renewables firming and cold load pickup capabilities. Our devices provide end users the ability to align their water heaters to renewable production on the grid and utilities to develop circuit level operational grid resources using behind-the-meter technologies. We are ready and waiting for state regulators to update their advanced grid policies to incorporate behind the meter uses beyond demand response to keep up with the advancing needs of the grid.