LCA increases its equity stake in RLtec to 77.4 percent

Low Carbon Accelerator (LCA) has made a further equity investment of £300,000 in ResponsiveLoad Ltd (RLtec).

LCA's investment was part of an overall £550,000 funding round, with £250,000 provided by a private investor. Further details weren't shared.

As part of this investment, LCA has converted its £900,000 convertible loan in RLtec, previously announced on 21 December 2007, into preference shares. These transactions result in LCA's equity stake in RLtec increasing to 77.4 percent and takes LCA's total investment in RLtec to £2,053,500. In addition, LCA has agreed to provide a further £300,000 in funding subject to the achievement of milestones.

It was originally envisaged that the convertible loan note would finance RLtec to the completion of a larger third party funding round. The company now expects to pursue this larger funding round after RLTec has agreed terms with the National Grid for the provision of grid balancing services using RLtec's patented dynamic demand technology. RLtec is targeting agreement of this contract in early 2009.

For its part, RLtec has shared that it is making steady progress towards agreeing a demonstration project with Ofgem and a major utility supplier under the UK's Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERTs) programme. It has also recently received an order to trial its product using electrical load available in the Sainsbury retail store estate, in addition to successfully completing application testing with a major appliance manufacturer.

RLtec has developed technology suitable for demand- response and Smart Grid energy balancing applications.