Drexel University has become the first institution in the country that will deploy Viridity's VPower System energy monitoring system on its main campus, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania's University City District. The system will provide real-time measurements of university power usage and eventually allow the university to sell energy back to the larger public grid.

Working with Viridity (www.viridityenergy.com), Drexel will install the system on a portion of its campus to demonstrate how an organization can manage its energy costs and environmental impact with real-time electric prices. Based on the real-time pricing technology, the system will allow the university to purchase power at times of the day when demand is low and sell excess power back to the larger power grid.

The technology, known as virtual generation, allows customers to become independent energy sources by selling excess power back to the public grid. In addition, the system will make portions of the campus independent from the larger grid, limiting the impact of the kind of cascade outages seen in 2003.