Strategic Real Estate Operators Will be Empowered to Participate in Transactive Energy Marketplaces

The transformation of the United States’ ancient power grid has given real estate owners and operators a prime seat at the table as their buildings become critical power nodes in growing energy marketplaces. Today, nascent energy technology already allows buildings to create their own electricity, store energy onsite, and sell excess energy into the grid. Buildings of the future, however, will take this even further, serving as power plants, complete with smart energy management systems, flexible loads, onsite generation, and energy storage. Energy intelligence at the building level is empowering real estate owners to partake in transactive energy marketplaces: easily selling power to neighboring buildings and properties. Although this was already happening on a small scale in personal dwellings, selling excess energy is a $400 billion opportunity that was previously untouched by the real estate community. Through recent innovation, real estate owners and operators see a clear path to partake in the broad transformation of the electric grid and resulting energy marketplaces, which represent massive incremental revenue streams.

Built for the real estate industry specifically, Blueprint Power is at the forefront of creating transactive energy marketplaces that enable real estate owners to become clean energy suppliers. Blueprint is redefining real estate energy consumption — the company’s technology uses machine learning to not only manage the use of generated energy (by solar panels and the like), but predict consumption needs and sell excess energy assets. Two notable strategic differentiations in the company’s marketplace software include price signals and the ability to dynamically match supply to the best source of revenue. Fifth Wall is pleased to join in Blueprint Power’s $3.5 million Series A, led by Congruent Ventures, MetaProp Ventures, Fred Wilson, and Brad Burnham.

Real estate owners have the incentive, scale, and management skills to not only reduce operational costs through better energy management, but also to generate new revenue streams by monetizing excess onsite energy — something that was historically considered a cost outside of their control. Blueprint Power is perfectly positioned to accelerate the transformation of buildings into intelligent power nodes. The company’s proprietary software helps real estate operators transform urban portfolios into producers and suppliers of clean energy. The potential for energy marketplaces far surpasses selling energy to other buildings. Down the line, other types of electricity customers (cars, buses, scooters, etc) will come online in meaningful ways, expanding the market opportunities as these customers look for opportunities to purchase energy from clean, intelligent power nodes. In the short term, buildings can use renewable energy to supply, manage, and control their own energy needs — onsite assets such as solar, battery storage, cogeneration, fuel cells, thermal storage and controllable loads. With Blueprint, this same software then allows real estate owners and operators to leverage expanding opportunities in energy marketplaces using data-driven, machine-learning tools that automate the management, aggregation, orchestration, and market transactions of energy assets.

Co-founder and CEO Robyn Beavers comes from a background at Google and came up with the idea for Blueprint Power while working at Lennar (a Fifth Wall LP — Jonathan Jaffe, President and COO of Lennar is now a board member of Blueprint Power). Rounding out the Blueprint team are co-founders Claire Woo, head of technology and formerly of Bosch and NRG, and Nicholas Squires, head of systems integration with expertise from time at Boeing. The company’s innovators and engineers include Nicholas Schmidt, VP of engineering (formerly of United States Air Force and Boeing); and Savannah Goodman, product manager (formerly of Tesla).

Through our deep relationship with Lennar, Fifth Wall decided to join as founding investors alongside Lennar. Now joined by a number of elite investors, Fifth Wall is thrilled to support Blueprint Power as it harnesses the true potential U.S. power grid and transforms millions of “dumb” buildings into smart power nodes. Participation in transactive energy marketplaces will allow real estate assets to increase their value by taking part in urban electric grid transformations. Rather than only being valued as physical real estate assets as they are today, becoming intelligent power nodes allows buildings to capitalize on their strategic physical positioning in next generation electric grids. By connecting Blueprint with our strategic owners and operators, Fifth Wall will accelerate the company’s trajectory with unparalleled access to enterprise relationships.