Free Electrons, the first global energy startup accelerator program, that connects the world’s most promising energy startups with leading utility companies, just selected the 15 teams that will now join the piloting phase program, after the Bootcamp.
The Bootcamp
The Bootcamp week is a critical part of the success of the program, and this year was held in Dublin and hosted by ESB. During this stage, utilities got to know in detail the potential of having these innovative disruptive solutions applied to their businesses. For Startups, it represents an enormous opportunity, not only to speak directly with 10 global companies but also to collect valuable feedback about their products, features and roadmaps.
Just by attending the Bootcamp startups are able to test their business cases potential on a global platform, enriched by the different expertise from the 10 utilities in their home markets. In just 3 days, startups need to quickly adjust to all the utility requirements, work together with them in creating room for a pilot to be held, and then present a viable pilot case.
The top 30 Bootcamp startups also had the chance to talk with CEOs from Free Electrons ’17 & ’18 winning startups – Sebastian Groh from ME SOLshare and Rui Beon form BeOn Energy – whose testimonials are key examples of the impact the program can have in helping startups scale fast, get funding or close new deals, alongside other alumni, Jungle.ai and Sterblue, who also shared their experience on the program.
The Bootcamp has also allowed for the opportunity to showcase Irish startup ecosystem, with several local companies invited to join the event.
The 15 finalist startups
The overall quality level of the 30 startups that qualified to the Bootcamp was amazing – all of them helped the utilities learn, and had really talented founders, that are already having an impact in the future of the energy sector.
But the 15 startups joining the piloting phase of Free Electrons ‘19 are Akselos SA, Ambi Labs Limited, CARTO, DEXMA, Energyworx, Enging – Make Solutions, envelio, ev.energy, GridBeyond, Heila Technologies Inc., Hygge Power, Save To Compete, Sensewaves, Solandeo and WePower.
These 15 startups will join the utilities on the 1st module, that will take place in Columbus, Ohio (EUA), from May 21st to 24th.
Digital transformation is taking over a large spectrum of industries, with the integration of digital technology into all areas of business, fundamentally changing how companies operate and deliver value to customers.
In the vanguard of this transformation is Free Electrons, the first global energy accelerator. Applications results reinforce Free Electrons positioning as the world-leading innovation platform for energy-related startups, the current edition had 481 applications, with 90% new entries.
Manuel Tânger, Co-founder and Head of Open-Innovation at Beta-i
We spoke with Manuel Tânger, Head of Open-Innovation at Beta-i, about how Free Electrons incorporates innovation methodologies to bring innovation to the sector.
What are the main innovation methodologies Beta-i is bringing to Free Electrons’ innovation framework?
Free Electrons is a program focused on creating the best conditions for the most innovative utilities to work with startups in order to innovate. This sounds easy, but it’s quite hard. To facilitate this, we focus very heavily on making pilots happening as a way to test profusely and ultimately get to the coveted deals between utilities and startups. Experimentation is, I would say, the core methodological concept of Free Electrons. But to do this, these pilots need to be thought up, designed, implemented and followed-up on. We, as Beta-i, have to create the moments and the mindset needed for both utilities and startups to think creatively on how they may work together and maybe do something that no one has ever done before. In particular, we use a “pilot canvas” that helps startups map out possible pilots to then be analyzed, discussed and fine-tuned with the utilities.
How do you build a framework that adds value to both startups and utilities?
When interests are fully aligned, then naturally what is good for startups is good for utilities. Utilities want to innovate and bring to market the best and newest offer possible, which generally involves new technology and business models. On the other hand, startups want a large audience to their niche product/service to be able to scale and improve their high performing product even more. Free Electrons makes this possible by design.
What are the key elements/moments in it?
It’s a long process from the partners’ needs assessment to the demo day, but one of the critical moments is the Bootcamp – which is happening right now in Dublin. It’s where startups and partners’ meet for the first time and try to look at the future together – and then pilot a solution for this future. It all happens in one intense week, and it has to work from then onwards.
By putting into contact these startups and quickening the speed of their scaling through collaboration with large global utilities, Free Electrons is, without question, accelerating this transformation with great benefit to all!
How do you think Free Electrons is helping re-shaping the energy sector worldwide?
The energy sector is going through a massive transformation with the consolidation and application of new technology. It is now cheaper to produce energy by solar than any other mean. Batteries are almost at a price point to make it competitive to store in the production luls at scale. Micro-production is now turning users into producers and contributors to the network. Electric vehicles are huge now and upcoming energy consumer but also batteries to be used as network balancing. Smart meters are gathering very fine-tuned user data that is propelling the appearance of new business models due to the data. This same data helps utilities and users maximize energy usage while minimizing the cost and also allows utilities to reach out to new spaces that go beyond energy and into services. These are a few of the highlights of the tectonic shift happening right now in the energy market. And startups are working on all of them! With the focus and zeal characteristic of modern tech entrepreneurs. By putting into contact these startups and quickening the speed of their scaling through collaboration with large global utilities, Free Electrons is, without question, accelerating this transformation with great benefit to all! To us, normal energy consumers, to startups that scale to grown-ups and utilities that capitalize on being first to embrace this change.
Free Electrons, the first energy global accelerator is ready to kick off its Bootcamp phase. In total, the program received 481 applications, from 62 different countries, a ‘spread’ that talks volumes about the international reach of the program.
The program only had a 10% repeat rate, and that means 90% of the startups we attracted are new entries, and that talks to the global visibility of the program, and its growing appeal.
The bootcamp
The bootcamp, held in Dublin (Ireland) from 2nd to 4th, will be critical for the success of the program, since this is when utilities and startups meet for the first time, to discuss the challenges and what the solutions to meet those challenges will look like.
This is also when the terms for the pilots are first set, and this will pretty much define the final quality of the pilots and the program as a whole.
The selected startups
These are the innovators that will be flying to Dublin to meet the 10 Free Electrons’ partners and join the Bootcamp activities (click the tab to get to know them better):
Akselos SA
Akselos, armed with the most advanced engineering simulation technology developed at MIT, has brought forward a means to use data to protect the world’s critical infrastructure by bringing top predictive power to digital twins.
AmbiClimate is the world’s first AI powered accessory for air conditioners. The proprietary artificial intelligence engines control the air conditioner/heat pump based on not just temperature alone, but also other key factors such as humidity and changing weather.
Anyware Solutions helps Energy Utilities, Insurance companies and Telcos to create effective Customer Engagement and new revenue streams, through targeted and personalized customer interaction and cross-selling of Smart Living Services.
Breezi is a new kind of home security company. They build connected devices and software that work like fitness trackers for some of the most expensive equipment in the modern home.
Chargetrip’s routing algorithms and intuitive trip planner make it easy to take any electric car beyond the range of the battery or use EV’s commercially with high intensity.
DEXMA is a top energy management solution provider in Europe, with several years of demonstrated capacity to innovate in a highly competitive global market.
Energyworx offers an Intelligent Meter Data Management SaaS solution. It’s the only cloud native MDM. Energyworx helps Energy and Utility companies monetize their rapidly growing volumes of diverse data.
Enging allows to monitor electrical motors and power transformers, even the ones that do not allow easy access, through an intelligent asset condition monitoring platform – ePreditMntc -, based on the latest IoT technologies related to Industry 4.0.
ev.energy is an electric vehicle (EV) charging software platform that allows driving with the cheapest and greenest energy available while controlling the time at which EVs charge when at home, to smooth out the peaks in electricity demand.
GridBeyond simplifies the complex energy landscape with a single, unified platform. By connecting energy intensive equipment, embedded generation and storage to GridBeyond’s intelligent energy platform.
Heila has developed a decentralized hardware and software solution to coordinate a collection of distributed energy resources (DERs), in which the bulk of the DERs’ control and optimization is performed at the asset level.
HypeLabs developed the Hype SDK, an interoperable mesh networking software that improves connectivity on all kinds of devices, from mobile to desktop to IoT.
The Innovus breakthrough is the use of its proprietary software and power converters to control power quality; frequency, voltage and waveform instead of Synchronous Generation which was invented in 1890.
Keewi solves the problem of energy inefficiency in commercial buildings due to plug loads, through hardware, software, and behavioral gamification components.
A machine learning based non-invasive load monitoring (NILM) system to inspire households for positive behavioral change and engage households towards sustainable energy consumption.
Powerpeers aims to accelerate the energy transition bottom-up. Powerpeers digitizes every kWh, creating an energy marketplace and community offering unrivaled transparency of provenance.
A digital platform that drastically reduces transactions’ costs for energy services, enabling customers to achieve a ~1000x reduction in proposal time, unlocking the potential of the SME market.
Solandeo provides AI as a digital service (SaaS) for energy traders and grid operators, supporting better decision making by human experts – and, eventually, fully automated trading and grid management under AI supervision.
Synvertec helps facilitate high levels of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) and Distributed Energy Resources (DER) within diverse electricity grids, while also significantly enhancing grid stability.
Treverity integrates the data from core enterprise systems (CIS, OMS, ERP, GIS, DMS, etc.), providing a unified view for all employees, along with purpose-built applications to enhance productivity and communications.
Xenotta provides data hosting solutions for the co-location, edge computing, private cloud and disaster recovery markets located on strategic sites with a planned global roll-out.
SOLshare came into Free Electrons programme with a bold mission: to create networks, share solar electricity & eliminate poverty. And they actually proved they can do it – that’s how they became the winners of a $200.000 prize of Free Electrons World’s Best Energy Startup 2018.
Who is SOLshare
A Bangladeshi social enterprise founded by Sebastien Groh in November 2015, it is now a diverse group of people working from Bangladesh, Bogotá and Berlin, to change the way people consume and pay for energy around the globe.
SOLshare Team – image by SOLshare
What does SOLshare do
SOLshare is bringing sustainable, affordable energy access for low-income rural people Bangladesh. Their decentralized peer-to-peer microgrids deliver solar power to households and businesses and enable them to trade their (excess) electricity for profit.
The SOLbox
How are they doing it? Well, they created a peer-to-peer energy trading platform on blockchain technology.
Bangladesh, where more 10 million people are cut off from the electric power system, was already investing in domestic solar panels called Solar Home System (SHS). SOLshare created the SOLbox – a bi-directional DC electricity meter that enables peer-to-peer electricity trading, smart grid management, remote monitoring, mobile money payment and data analytics.
Through the Solbox, consumers can choose whether they wish to be a buyer of energy or a seller (if they have a solar panel installed), and even sell energy to homes that do not have a solar panel system installed.
By connecting several SHS to each other as well as to homes without electricity, the nano-grid can provide a consistent energy network for an entire village.
The plug-and-play nature of the technology allows the grid to grow dynamically from the ‘bottom-up’ as more users can dynamically connect over time.
The data is stored in the network and the digital platform integrates mobile money infrastructure for remote payment (payments are processed through a phone application via credit or debit) and lockout and provides data analytics and grid management services.
SOLshare’s journey through Free Electrons
Coming into Free Electrons, SOLshare had a lot to offer: with their nano-grids, they could provide to utilities certainty, with their distributed billing they were able to offer controlled systems, and also could provide distributed storage. By partnering up with global utilities, SOLshare had a chance to pilot their products in a long-reaching plan.
They didn’t waste any time partnering up and worked on pilots with both Innogy and Tepco, for a donation platform (Energy SOLidarity Token), where a donor can choose individual users or a predefined group of users (like a village) to donate energy to.
By the end phase of Free Electrons, SOLshare had raised a $1.66M A-series round of investment from utilities EDP and Innogy, and IIX (Impact Investment Exchange).
SOLshare wins Free Electrons World’s Best Energy Startup 2018
Leaving an impact
The peer-to-peer solar grids are changing lives in Bangladesh. They are reaching out to isolated, poor communities in Bangladesh and empowering them to upgrade their lives with the use of power in agricultural and day-to-day tasks and even turning them into business people by providing energy to their neighbors.
SOLshare pioneers a micro-energy transition model 3.0 by interconnecting solar home systems in peer-to-peer networks, monetizing excess solar energy along the value chain in real time with mobile money and empowering communities to earn a direct income from the sun.
They are opening up a path that can be used by utilities globally and the future of clean energy.
First Bangladeshi Startup to make it in the 2019 Global Cleantech 100
In its 10th edition, The Global Cleantech 100 is an annual guide to the leading companies and themes in sustainable innovation. It features the private, independent, for-profit companies best positioned to solve tomorrow’s clean technology challenges. SOLshare made it into the list, proving once again it is one of the most innovative and promising ideas in cleantech and that it’s best positioned to solve tomorrow’s clean technology challenges.
Join the Free Electrons community
If you too have a project that could change the energy industry, apply to Free Electrons – the leading global energy startup accelerator is looking for the brightest startups in the Energy scene to partner up with global utilities in accelerating change in this industry.
When Rui Beon, as he is now known, won Free Electrons last year he made an emotional speech that he claims “rarely happens”. He wasn’t expecting, this wasn’t an Oscar night where the winners already know they’re going to win because they’ve won everything during the award season. This was the first edition of Free Electrons. None of the startups really knew what they’re getting themselves into. They only knew that eight giant utilities didn’t come knocking on their doors every day.
But let’s start from the beginning. Rui, was just a kid when he first started inventing gadgets, and having this passion for everything electronic and that’s why he decided to study electrical engineering. Little did he know how sealed was his fate.
BeOn Energy was founded in 2014, during an innovation program from EDP and they have been working together ever since. BeOn is a company developing solar technologies and it’s the first company in the world developing and producing PV panel integrated controllable microinverters, specially designed for energy self-consumption and smart energy management solutions.
The idea is nothing new, it’s been out there for over 20 years, but only in the past 10 years there’s the technology to make it possible. Rui admits that what caught the utilities attention was the simplicity, how quickly it can be installed and the democratization of the solar energy. Also, in two years the European Union is demanding that every building has renewable energy. So BeOn, as well as its clients, will be in pole position.
Throughout the program, Rui says he never thought about the prize money, he believes that the true opportunity of Free Electrons is being able to work with some of the utilities more than winning the final prize. “Those startups are not competing for the best idea, they are there to do business”, says Rui.
However, the startups got a little too overwhelmed with the dimension of the program and kind of forgot they had to work towards a goal. He believes all of them could have done better but they “woke up too late”. When asked what advice he would give to startups applying to Free Electrons this year he says that they need “an urgency to do more, to grab the opportunity and don’t let go, give their best and mainly never lose focus”.
Today BeOn still has a pilot with SP Group and another one with ESB, having other projects on the pipeline and is also working with other startups from Free Electrons, because, you may be surprised, they’re actually friends. It is not a matter of winning or losing, it’s a matter of joining forces and contribute to a better world (and do business).
It’s a win-win
You’re probably wondering what do the utilities gain with all this? Like every company in this world it has come the time for utilities to reinvent themselves, and there’s no such thing as rivalry among all eight utilities, they actually help each other out. Not only they know they’re stronger together but also they know that if they don’t understand the future business model they’ll end up struggling in the future, so it’s a win-win.
Future Free Electrons startups know one thing for sure: nothing comes easy, nothing comes that you are not supposed to have. Rui made it this far because he fought a lot. If you ever get the chance to see the video of his victory you’ll hear about his past. He was born poor, he didn’t have any utility at home, meaning he didn’t have electricity or water and he now works for eight of the biggest utilities in the world.
Rui doesn’t believe in coincidences not even when he found out that his great grandfather worked at a coal mine where now is the famous MAAT fed by BeOn energy and where the Portuguese module of Free Electrons took place. He doesn’t think it was destiny, he likes to think he built his own destiny.
Having spoken with people who worked with him during the program I know that he built his own destiny because he never gave up, he never lost focus. But you know, some things are just meant to be, it seems like all stars align for some people to get exactly what they’re supposed to. This was his future all along, it was always in his blood and it can also be in yours. You’ll only realize once it happens. Like he did. Whether you face it as destiny or hard-work or both, that’s up to you.
