Nostromo Energy and Olivine Pioneer First Thermal Energy Storage Participation in Wholesale Energy Markets, Setting Global Precedent

A single Nostromo IceBrick^® system at the Beverly Hilton delivered load reductions in excess of 200 kW during CAISO dispatch events, demonstrating potential to advance California's SB 846 goal of 7 GW of load shift by 2030.

IRVINE, Calif., Nov. 24, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Nostromo Energy, a leader in integrated demand management solutions, in partnership with Olivine, Inc., a premier provider of distributed energy resource integration and California Independent System Operator (CAISO) Scheduling Coordinator services, today announced a groundbreaking achievement in distributed energy resource (DER) management. Nostromo's innovative IceBrick system, installed at the iconic Beverly Hilton Hotel and serving also the adjacent Waldorf Astoria, is the first behind-the-meter thermal energy storage system to participate in the CAISO wholesale energy market as a standalone demand response resource. This milestone culminates a period of intensive testing and validation, marking a significant step towards realizing the Department of Energy's (DOE) vision of "grid-interactive efficient buildings" to make electricity more efficient, reliable, and affordable. According to DOE, grid-interactive buildings could save the U.S. electricity system between $8 and $18 billion annually by 2030.

"California's clean-energy future depends on smarter use of the grid we already have," said California Senator Henry Stern. "Virtual power plants made of homes, hotels, and businesses equipped with flexible resources like thermal storage can shift load, reduce curtailment, and keep the lights on at lower cost. I'm encouraged to see projects like the Beverly Hilton demonstrate how customer-sited storage can participate in CAISO markets and support a more reliable, affordable, and decarbonized grid."

Nostromo's IceBrick system at the Beverly Hilton participated in California's Demand Side Grid Support (DSGS) program this summer, delivering event reductions exceeding 200 kW. By bidding with Olivine in the CAISO market, Nostromo enabled the Beverly Hilton and Waldorf Astoria to operate as a dispatchable, market-integrated resource.

Olivine's ClimateResponse^® DER platform played a critical role in enabling this first-of-its-kind participation. The platform and Olivine's robust market services bridges the gap between complex CAISO requirements and monetization of real-world asset operations. By facilitating  CAISO market transactions, coordinating dispatches, and delivering actionable performance valuations, Olivine ensures distributed energy resources like Nostromo's IceBrick® can reliably provide revenue-generating grid services.

"This project shows that behind-the-meter thermal energy storage can be a powerful, flexible resource in the wholesale market," said Beth Reid, CEO of Olivine, Inc. "By integrating Nostromo's IceBrick® into CAISO, we've shown how innovative technologies and market expertise can work together to unlock new value streams, strengthen grid reliability, and accelerate the transition to a cleaner energy future."

Nostromo Energy directly addresses critical challenges faced by utilities and Community Choice Aggregations (CCAs), offering a powerful solution to increase grid capacity, enhance efficiency, ensure reliability, and make power more affordable for consumers. By leveraging behind-the-meter thermal energy storage, Nostromo provides a distinct advantage over traditional front-of-the-meter solutions, significantly enhancing grid flexibility through localized control and rapid response to dynamic energy demands, all without the need for extensive new infrastructure or having any impact on its host's conditions or activities.

The core of Nostromo's innovation is the IceBrick technology. This intelligent system is designed to seamlessly balance and optimize energy needs, providing critical flexibility that benefits both the host facility and the broader electrical grid. For utilities and CCAs, this means improved load management, reduced peak demand charges, and enhanced grid resilience and flexibility, particularly during periods of high stress or renewable energy intermittency. For data centers, flexible loads means speed to power.

The IceBrick technology can be deployed nationally, as evidenced by the DOE's $305 million conditional loan guarantee for Project IceBrick. This collaboration further underscores the system's ability to contribute significantly to national energy goals, paving the way for widespread adoption across diverse commercial and industrial settings.

"This is a momentous occasion for both building owners and the electric system," said Yoram Ashery, CEO of Nostromo Energy. "Cooling by commercial buildings' and data centers is the single, largest load on the grid, and making these large loads flexible and operable interactively with the power grid demonstrates how buildings and data centers can help the grid unlock existing capacity to serve new demands, while saving energy costs and enjoying more resilient and reliable cooling operation. This successful grid integration and our partnership with Olivine establishes a strong foundation as we look toward widespread commercial deployment in the coming year."

Nostromo and Olivine will continue to build on this success by enabling other commercial buildings and data centers to become active, flexible grid partners through cost-effective, decarbonizing technologies. The focus shifts now to scaling this proven model to bring this critical resource to more markets.

About Olivine

Olivine, Inc. is a leader in distributed energy resources, demand response, and load flexibility capabilities. Olivine delivers innovative solutions to provide grid reliability in the face of climate change. Olivine's ClimateResponse® VPP empowers electricity consumers to lower their utility costs, improve the resilience of the electric grid, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to address the climate crisis. As a trusted partner to utilities, aggregators, and program administrators, Olivine combines deep regulatory expertise with proven program operations to unlock and monetize flexible, customer-sited assets at scale across utility programs and wholesale markets.

For more information, visit olivineinc.com.

Media contact: Heather Walters, Marketing Manager  ([email protected])

About Nostromo Energy

Nostromo Energy's IceBrick® energy storage solution is redefining distributed energy storage and demand management for Commercial and Industrial (C&I) buildings, and data centers, enabling them to become valuable grid assets, significantly reduce their energy costs, enhance their resilience and accelerate speed to power. The IceBrick® system stores energy by freezing water to ice when electricity prices are low and energy is abundant, and later discharges the energy to avoid using expensive electricity during peak demand. In this way, Nostromo helps reduce grid congestion, optimize energy consumption and paves the way to a more efficient electric grid, while offering buildings a safe, clean, and financially beneficial energy storage solution. The IceBrick® is non-flammable, modular, and compact, easily retrofitted to existing commercial and industrial buildings.

To learn more about Nostromo and the IceBrick® technology, visit www.nostromo.energy.

Media contact: Preciouse Gross, Director of Marketing ([email protected])

SOURCE Nostromo