One platform to advance the green transition of power grids
Incumbent utility companies can accelerate Europe's energy resilience by partnering with real-time, enterprise-grade trading software.
Due to the rapid increase of renewables, today’s energy grids are like old Christmas lights: They struggle to run all the light bulbs at the same time and with the same intensity. This outdated centralized system generates important costs for grid participants: utility companies and their consumers.
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High costs of an inefficient and intermittent energy grid
Historically, energy grids have operated on a centralized model, where energy production is concentrated and distributed to meet each household's simultaneous demand. With the exponential adoption of greener alternatives like solar panels, heat pumps, electric vehicles and home batteries, the energy market has seen a surge in decentralized energy sources on both the generation and usage sides. These technologies empower households to become more energy-independent, reducing their reliance on the traditional grid. But, this shift has increased the unpredictability of the energy supply.
The grid is now burdened with answering to both centralized energy generation and decentralized energy devices with huge varying loads. Therefore, balancing the grid is essential and can cut costs for both consumers and utility companies. The problem is that the orchestration of these millions of decentralized devices requires utilities to deploy real-time software, enterprise-grade security, and smart algorithms.
Utility companies also face geopolitical dependencies, as highlighted by the latest energy crisis. Europe’s reliance on Russian gas led to supply disruptions and price volatility, making energy security a pressing concern.
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Synchronizing energy grids with one single platform
The Austrian startup Podero addresses the challenges of a decentralized energy grid by synchronizing consumer devices, electricity markets, and utilities’ software systems to offer highly competitive electricity contracts. This allows utilities to trade on the electricity markets to counter market volatility, reducing consumer electricity costs and stabilizing the grid.
When we invested in December 2022, Podero was in conversation with just a handful of utility partners. Now they have launched with companies such as E.ON, oekestrom, and KELAG, helping them leverage and monetize the increasingly decentralized energy grid – and anticipate new legislation. For instance, from 2025 onwards, all utilities will have to offer dynamic electricity contracts in Germany.
As decentralized energy production scales exponentially, the energy landscape continues to evolve. Integrated solutions like Podero’s software platform are crucial for harmonizing decentralized energy sources, stabilizing demand, and supporting the green energy transition.
The founders of Podero Chris Bernkopf and Moritz Schrader are hiring. Explore new opportunities here.
