Plexigrid wins Iberdola’s grid planning challenge

The Spanish startup Plexigrid has won Iberdrola’s latest innovation challenge to optimise grid capacity through data and AI.

The challenge, which was proposed by Iberdola’s distribution company i-DE and held at the company’s Global Smart Grids Innovation Hub in Bilbao, was on planning new demand scenarios in the electricity grid with innovative solutions to optimise grid capacity using data and AI techniques.

Among other factors, the scenarios had to take into account the evolution and geolocation of current electricity demand, generation and self-consumption, residential, industrial and utility scale storage, and new demand, both emerging including e-mobility and industrial decarbonisation and longer term including e-fuels and green hydrogen.

With these scenarios, the distribution company would then be able to forecast their operations and plan their investments to guarantee the grid’s capacity, assuming a reasonable demand for electricity distribution on a five to ten year horizon.

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Out of the more than 30 solutions that were presented, Plexigrid’s solution was selected as the winner and will now be piloted with financial support with i-DE, with the potential for subsequent scale up.

In addition, Plexigrid becomes a collaborator in the Smart Grids Innovation Hub and with the challenge held in partnership with the Bizkaia local government’s International Entrepreneurship Centre’s BAT B Accelerator Tower, Plexigrid becomes part of the BAT community and able to participate in a personalised acceleration programme to boost its growth.

Iberdrola’s startup programme PERSEO was initiated in 2008 and records over €200 million ($217.1 million) investment in innovative technologies, focusing on those that improve the energy sector’s sustainability through greater electrification and decarbonisation of the economy.

Plexigrid pilots dynamic tariffs in Sweden

Plexigrid, based in Gijón, Spain and Stockholm, Sweden, was spun out of the University of Oviedo in 2020.

Its key products are for monitoring, grid analytics and flexibility management, which are integrated on an AI-powered digital twin platform with the aim to provide the tools for DSOs for next generation distribution grid management.

Most recently, Plexigrid also has announced a pilot on Gotland in Sweden with Gotlands Energi (GEAB) and smart home solution provider Ngenic in a project run by the Energicentrum Gotland.

The focus of the pilot is on the role of dynamic tariffs in grid management and how they can incentivise active energy management by consumers to benefit both themselves and the grid.

The aim, integrating Plexigrid’s grid intelligence with Ngenic’s smart home technology, is to develop a dynamic tariff model that reflects both the real time grid conditions and customer behaviour.