Robyn Beavers
Co-founder and CEO at Blueprint Power
They say timing is everything, and the work that Blueprint Power does is certainly timely.
The approximately 60-employee, Manhattan-based company that Robyn Beavers leads specializes in what’s come to be called virtual power plants (VPPs) — basically sourcing energy from different places via cloud technology to power however big a footprint. They’re essential to the future energy needs of the U.S.
Don’t take Commercial Observer’s word for it. Around the same time that CO talked to Beavers, the U.S. Energy Department released a report saying just that about virtual power plants: “Large-scale deployment of VPPs could help address demand increases and rising peaks at lower cost than conventional resources, reducing the energy costs for Americans — one in six of whom are already behind on electricity bills.”
Blueprint Power’s VPP work — and its work in general on the manifold needs of an evolving power grid — means ongoing work for a company that dates from just 2017 and that the energy giant BP acquired in 2021.
“There’s huge momentum behind the genre that Blueprint falls under,” Beavers said.
The momentum includes electric vehicle charging stations as well as other technology to wean the built environment off fossil fuels. Blueprint primarily works by using VPPs and other tech to clean up buildings (i.e., reduce their carbon emissions and make them more independently sustainable). The company has worked with sasquatchian names such as Hines, Tishman Speyer, Vornado Realty, the Related Companies and the Lefrak Organization.
In summer 2022, Blueprint also partnered with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas — a major operator of the state’s electrical grid — in its first foray into Texas.
Beavers arrived at her current perch far from green (in another sense). It all started in earnest in 2004 when, armed with a civil engineering degree from Stanford, she applied directly to the co-founders of a rapidly growing firm called Google. “I put my resume on Monster.com — that’s how long ago it was.” Her remit under Sergey Brin and Larry Page eventually included strategy for the construction of Google’s offices, which have become famous in part for their green features.
