Venture capitalists and investment bankers are fascinated by the potential of making money from Smart Grid investments and initial public offerings in the coming year, judging from the latest panel at VentureBeat’s GreenBeat 09 event today.

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Peter Wagner, a partner at Accel Partners (second from right), compared the Smart Grid opportunities to those on technology platforms such as Apple’s iPhone. He says the utilities are like the cell phone network owners, and platform owners such as Silver Spring Networks — which makes wireless networks that transfer data from smart meters to utilities — make it possible to create lucrative apps that exploit the Smart Grid. A lot of the future opportunities for startups will be in the apps, he said. These are equivalent to “offdeck” apps as with the AppStore.

Right now, Wagner said he is looking for companies that can exploit the platform and create apps that can be sold directly to consumers. As with the iPhone, that enables startups to sell directly to consumers and bypass the gatekeeping process of the utilities.

“I encourage entrepreneurs to think of a customer that is not the utility, since the utility sales cycles are long and they move slowly on new business models,” Wagner said.

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