Zen Home Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of The Chron Organization – an incubation, advisory, and capital services business – announced on October 17 that the it had entered into a letter of intent for the acquisition of Enertrade Electric, a Houston-based retail electric provider (REP) doing business in the deregulated ERCOT market.
Zen Home Services intends to acquire Enertrade Electric via a member interest purchase agreement. This will give Zen all of the required independent service organization (ISO) and regulatory licensing, supplier agreements to operate in the REP space “in an overnight fashion,” the company said.
Enertrade has been active in acquiring and servicing customers in Texas and has been operating profitably for several years. Additionally, Enertrade has a spotless customer service record with the Texas Public Utility Commission, the announcement claimed.
Alex Rodriguez, CHRON president and Zen Home Services CEO, who led the negotiations with Enertrade executives, stated, “This acquisition marks a huge step forward for Zen Home Services in our overall plan to not only be the home automation leader in Texas and eventually nationwide, but also to supply smart renewable electricity plans to our customers.”
Subject to approval, which should take roughly 90 days, this acquisition will allow Zen Home Services to immediately begin offering energy products and services to new customers as well as continuing to serve existing customers.
Byron Young, CHRON chairman, remarked, “This is a big deal for us. With Zen Home Services able to operate as a REP, we are effectively combining home automation with green energy services toward offering the consummate smart home solution. This unique value proposition to the market will empower consumers to save money on their monthly energy costs while adding value to our shareholders as we roll out another major source of revenue for CHRON.”
Rodriguez added, “Through strategic vendors, we’ve been building out a custom enterprise resource planning (ERP) system [for] the past year, exclusively for the REP space that will allow us to market and sell cutting edge time-of-use (TOU) and demand response products to the residential masses. Our Smart Home Controls already gives us access to lights, thermostats and large appliances — the REP offering is the final piece to this puzzle that I’ve envisioned for the past 10 years now.”