Staying ahead of the technology curve means strengthening your competitive advantage. That is why we give you data-driven innovation insights into the utility sector. This time, you get to discover 5 hand-picked smart grid management solutions.
Out of 1 127, the Global Startup Heat Map highlights 5 Top Smart Grid Management Solutions
The insights of this data-driven analysis are derived from the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering 2 093 000+ startups & scaleups globally. The platform gives you an exhaustive overview of emerging technologies & relevant startups within a specific field in just a few clicks.
The Global Startup Heat Map below reveals the distribution of the 1 127 exemplary startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. Further, it highlights 5 energy startups that we hand-picked based on criteria such as founding year, location, funding raised, and more. You get to explore the solutions of these 5 startups & scaleups in this report. For insights on the other 1 122 smart grid management solutions, get in touch.
WatEner enables Water Networks Management
As cities continue to grow, water utility networks become increasingly complex. Moreover, the operation and management of water networks involve knowing the location and condition of all infrastructure and assets along with coordinating workforce and resources. This complexity and difficulty result in increased costs. To this end, startups are developing smart monitoring and control tools to improve the operation of water networks.
Spanish startup WatEner develops a web platform for real-time water network management. The platform integrates existing data, cartography, and hydraulic models to visualize water pipe networks. It then combines these with artificial intelligence (AI) and pattern recognition to improve operational strategies. With demand forecast and leak detection, the platform enables water grid operators to save time and resources.
In2lytics provides Grid Time-Series Database
The energy industry is transitioning to renewable energy to meet growing energy demands. However, this presents a challenge as unlike consistent energy from fossil fuels, renewable power generation fluctuates due to weather, day-night cycles, and so on, depending on the production methods. This is why startups are offering time-series databases to monitor the energy output from renewable sources. This enables utilities to provide stable and consistent distributed energy.
US-based startup in2lytics provides a grid time-series database that stores information from amazon machine images (AMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, and other proprietary metadata sources. It then provides critical insights from grid data for integrated renewables planning. In effect, this increases system availability while reducing operational expenses. The database platform further allows grid operators to manage their operations through modeling and forecasting, customer support, curtailment, and analytic applications.
GreenCityZen provides Sewer Monitoring
Sewers are critical urban infrastructures as they prevent flooding and the spread of water-borne diseases while enabling the transportation of water for recycling. Besides, leakage or spills poses health risks to those exposed and the foul odors make the affected area unusable to the public for the duration. To prevent these, startups are providing software that monitors the condition of wastewater networks.
French startup GreenCityZen creates the Internet of things (IoT) solutions to monitor city sewer networks. The startup’s sewer monitoring products include a self-powered and connected ultrasonic sensor along with a web and mobile application that displays the captured data in a dashboard. The applications also feature a map displaying clogging speed, flow and inflow leaks calculations, rainfall aggregation, and more. It, hence, allows sewer operators and maintenance teams to improve rainfall and stormwater management, cleaning, as well as odor monitoring.
Pydro develops Water Loss Monitoring Sensors
As the scale of cities and their utility infrastructure increases, operators integrate smart technologies into utility grids. Current smart grids use an array of sensors to provide operators with analytics for operations optimization and asset maintenance. Although this helps in managing networks, the large number of sensors and their maintenance creates additional challenges. This is why startups are developing water monitoring sensors that use turbines to power themselves while monitoring the condition of pipelines.
German startup Pydro manufactures self-powered plug-and-play sensor solutions for water networks. The startup’s product, PT1, measures water flow, pressure, and temperature while harvesting energy from the water flow using an integrated hydropower turbine and storing it in an internal battery. Moreover, the system’s turbine only creates a very low drop in water pressure, thereby having no visible effect on the grid’s operation. The data collected is transmittable in real-time via 3G, IoT, or MIoTy for customer metering or grid monitoring applications.
encoord facilitates Utility Network Modeling
The energy industry is increasingly adopting coupled energy networks as a method to transition to clean energy and optimize load distribution. As coupled energy networks utilize different sources of energy with different outputs and efficiencies, it is important to analyze and understand the feasibility of developing coupled systems. Therefore, startups are creating software solutions that qualify and model the effects of coupled utility networks.
US-based startup encoord creates a planning software to model coupled energy and utility networks. Their software, Scenario Analysis Interface for Energy Systems (SAInt), enables users to run simulations and optimization models to quantify the trade-offs between costs and reliability of implementing coupled networks. SAInt finds applications in modeling a range of utility networks including electricity, gas, wind, and solar.
Discover more Utility startups
Utility startups such as the examples highlighted in this report focus on digital management, grid monitoring, and smart metering. While all of these technologies play a major role in advancing utility management, they only represent the tip of the iceberg. To explore more technology solutions for utility companies, simply get in touch to let us look into your areas of interest. For a more general overview, you can download one of our free Industry Innovation Reports to save your time and improve strategic decision-making.
