In All the Doom and Gloom, Some Good Economic News in Tech Sector: Power Standards Lab Raises $1.5 Million in Private Stock Offering

Business Wire, Oct 2, 2008

ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Power Standards Lab, a privately-held California start-up corporation in the energy instrument sector, has raised $1.5 million from a group of American, European, and Asian investors. Alex McEachern, PSL's president, said that the investment will fund a new type of energy meter for industrial applications.

"As a start-up with revenue, we were in a great position to attract investment," said McEachern. "We've got an extraordinarily international start-up team: our Vice President of Operations is from New Zealand, our Vice President of Technical Services is from Germany, our Vice President of Sales is from Guatemala. Together we've built 12 technology start-ups, we speak 7 languages, and we're all experts on industrial electric power."

Located in Alameda, California, Power Standards Lab will introduce a new electric power meter for industrial applications. It will sell for roughly one-tenth the price of competitive meters.

To develop the new meter, Power Standards Lab put together a team of engineers from the University of California at Berkeley, whose engineering school is famous for its cutting-edge energy applications.

Power Standards Lab's McEachern is widely recognized as the world's leading authority on electric power disturbances, which are events on the power grid that damage and disrupt sensitive industrial equipment.

"You may have noticed that your lights at home dim briefly when your refrigerator starts," says McEachern. "That's a simple type of power disturbance."

Industrial power disturbances on the electric power grid can be more complicated, says McEachern, ranging from brief voltage reductions caused by snakes and squirrels and monkeys crawling on the power wires, to high voltage impulses caused by lightning and bursts of noise caused by police transmitters.

"These disturbances can travel hundreds of miles through the power grid, then suddenly cause an overly sensitive robot to freeze," McEachern explains. "They're easy to blame, and hard to find - that's why Power Standards Lab's new meter is so valuable."