Verde Energy USA, a leading retailer of electricity, and the city of Naperville, Illinois, jointly announced the launch of a clean energy efficiency demonstration project. 

This project, which involves the installation of a clean energy storage system at Naperville's Water Service Center will achieve energy efficiencies and reduce costs to the city of Naperville. The project will begin this month and continue throughout 2013, during which time Verde and the city of Naperville will collect data and share results.

As part of the partnership, Verde will invest the funds necessary to purchase and install Ice Energy's Ice Bear technology, an intelligent smart grid-enabled distributed energy storage system, at the Water Service Center at no cost to the city of Naperville.

The Ice Bear replaces conventional condensing units, a component of a typical building cooling system. Ice Bear shifts air conditioning electrical power demand to off-peak hours by using water to make ice at night, when the electric grid is generally unstressed. Then, during a hot summer day, when demand goes up and electric prices may be higher, the melting ice provides the cooling that otherwise would have to come from the air conditioner's compressor. The melted water is then recycled through the system when the process begins again the following night. The result is lower energy costs and increased electric grid reliability.

The city of Naperville was determined to be a perfect location for this technology thanks to the Naperville smart grid initiative, an upgrade of the city's $360 million electric network to provide more efficient, cost-effective and reliable service to Naperville's utility customers and empower them with more information on their energy usage.