Investing in Gridsight
Gridsight is using AI to transform how electricity networks operate. We’re proud to have led their $7.5m Series A.
I love this chart because it so easily captures the investing opportunity in climate. It will surprise no one that decarbonisation and renewable-led electrification is one of the greatest challenges we currently face. One of the biggest blockers to decarbonisation is the ailing electricity grid itself.
It may be the largest machine ever made, but the electricity grid is well over 100 years old in parts and is not built for a world full of renewable energy sources. The rapid rollout of AI data centres is not helping either. The grid is incredibly complicated, and it desperately needs to keep up with our changing energy demands if we’re going to have any hope of transitioning to a low-carbon economy.
The Problem
The grid must carefully balance supply and demand in order to maintain a stable frequency – if it becomes unbalanced (e.g. through spikes in demand), blackouts can occur. Balancing the grid used to be straightforward. When it was first built, it was assumed that power would always flow from centralised sources like a coal fire generator, into towns and cities where it would be used.
However, with the rollout of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) – think solar panels, EV chargers, smart thermostats, etc. – this assumption has broken down. There are now gigawatts of flexible generation capacity at the edge of the grid, and this means that balancing the grid has become much more challenging. This supply-demand imbalance is why there are huge global delays in bringing new renewable energy projects online.
Enter Gridsight
Going forward, reliable power delivery will hinge on a utility’s ability to understand what is happening at the edge of their grid. This is an extremely complex real-world system that until recently, was virtually impossible to model.
Brendan Banfield, CEO and co-founder of Gridsight first noticed this problem when he was working as an electrical engineer at AGL. It intrigued him so much that he decided to pursue a PhD on the optimisation of DERs. That experience led him to develop the world’s leading AI-powered smart grid management system and in 2021, he partnered with Hugh Chan and Kurt Walkom to bring it to life.
Fast forward to today and Gridsight is working with 50% of Australia’s grid operators. They’re combining modern AI techniques with electrical network data to help utilities manage the grid, and promote the integration of renewable energy. This is a critical piece of decoupling carbon emissions from GDP and the electrical engineer in me couldn’t be more excited to be along for the journey.