Matthew BoyleWith the aid of this investment, the Hungarian scale-up will be able to reach new markets and move toward a zero-carbon future.
The world’s largest source of solar energy is hydropower.
Hydro is essential for supply security because it generates 60 % of all international renewable energy and offers dependable baseload energy 365 days a year.
It is the largest source of grid-scale storage currently on the market and will continue to offer about 500 times as much capacity as battery technology well into 2035.
Hydropower is frequently seen as the sleeping giant of the energy transition, despite the crucial role it plays as a natural battery to the grid. This is due to the fact that a sizable portion of its potential is now underutilized because of complex regulation or the absence of digitalization. And that’s what we want to change, according to HYDROGRID CEO Janice Goodenough.
HYDROGRID: Offers an IoT solution for the best hydropower plant management.
HYDROGRID was established in 2016 in Vienna and provides automated IoT software for the best real-time planning and dispatch of hydropower plants.
By aligning their production to the power markets and lowering monthly operating workload, the company’s SaaS solution enables power plant owners to increase their revenues by up to 16 %.
The HYDROGRID solution combines intelligent optimisation across the small, medium, and long term horizons for run-of-river, pondage, storage ,and cascade hydro-assets with machine learning algorithms for inflow and power price forecasting.
This enables hydropower operators to automate their power market revenues, reduce water losses, and respond in real-time to weather events while ensuring economic and administrative safety and compliance.
Now, the Austrian company helps liquid operators in 7 nations to completely digitalize their water-to-money business.
The financiers
With support from the CEZ Group and the European Investment Bank ( EIB ), Inven Capital is a €500 million European venture capital fund that focuses on later-stage climate tech investments in Europe andamp, Israel.
With a good business model supported by realized revenues and long-term growth potential, the VC mainly focuses on later-stage growth investment opportunities.
“At Inven Capital, we believe hydropower is crucial in the transition towards a zero-carbon economy” says Michal Mravec, investment director, “Hydropower owners gain a great deal from HYDROGRID’s ability to actively manage inflow forecasting, water management, and economic regulation and then combine them with ideal power trading. Operators can increase their revenues by up to 50% and streamline their processes with the help of the real-time, all-in-one solution, which enables them to stay competitive in a competitive market and regulatory environment. Increased hydropower generation by up to 10 % when compared to regular operation has a significant beneficial impact on the climate. We are eager to assist the business as it embarks on a worldwide expansion.”
A venture capital firm with a focus on investing in European deep-tech companies with robust technical USP and demonstrated customer traction is called Karma Ventures.
The Baltic Innovation Fund 2 ( BIF 2 ), a project developed in collaboration by the Republic of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the European Investment Fund, supports Karma Ventures ‘ second fund among others.
According to Tommi Uhari, a partner at Karma Ventures,” I have been tracking the growth of both the company and the product since 2019. The HYDROGRID team’s exceptional talent and spirit is, in my opinion, the business ‘ greatest asset. It gives me hope that they’ll keep putting their optimistic growth plans into action. We are eager to invest with Inven Capital and see that current investors CNB and SET Ventures will continue to support us because of this. This gives the business the freedom to realize its full potential and vision.”
