Smart Grids (2024)

1. Rise of the aggregators

   Alongside batteries, startups are working on other tools to help balance the grid. They’re an example of the hardware-software combo we’re seeing more of in climate tech.

   Dutch startup Sympower, for example, partners with companies that use a significant amount of energy, gains access to some of their energy assets and can turn them on and off when the grid requires balancing. By aggregating the demands of several companies together, Sympower aims to deliver a high amount of balancing capacity to the grid.

   The companies are paid by the grid for acting as reserve balancing capacity and then paid more if they’re actually needed.
   More companies are working on aggregation to balance the grid. Another is Norwegian-Swedish startup Tibber, which uses home energy assets to bring flexibility to the grid.

   At first, Tibber used customers’ electric vehicles to balance the grid — these can act as mini batteries dispatching and storing energy. It now also integrates heat pumps, solar panels and domestic batteries.

2. Incoming regulation

   To work, aggregators need jurisdictions they work in to have legislation in place that allows companies to provide flexibility services to the grid. Some countries have allowed it for longer than others. The UK has been a leader, Greece opened up its flexibility market last year and industry insiders expect Poland to do the same this year.

   Despite being a leader in battery production, Sweden has been one of the slower to adopt grid flexibility mechanisms. Companies wanting to act as a flexibility partner in Sweden have to go through a middleman but this year it’s expected that they’ll be able to interact directly with the grid.

3. Transformer tech

   Companies are also starting to work on tech that changes elements of the grid itself.

   Transformers sit throughout the grid to convert the high voltage electricity that travels around the main network into a lower voltage that can be used in households. Spanish company IONATE provides next-generation transformers that monitor the voltage to a minute level and can dynamically control it based on the supply of electricity at a given time.

   Edinburgh-based ENODA is also working on a device that replaces the transformer and other parts of the distribution substation.

4. Sub-sea cables

   On the most ambitious end of grid tech innovation are high voltage direct current (HVDC) cables, which sit along the sea bed to transmit electricity over a very long distance while minimising power losses. Moving energy between countries could help fill in intermittency and create much more reliable grids. UK startup Xlinks, for example, is building an HVDC cable from Morocco to the UK, bringing in solar power.

   Building cables is a hugely capital intensive endeavour, so most of the work is being done by established energy companies but, if startups like Xlinks can pull it off, the reward would be significant.

Who early stage startups are up against