Eneco Ventures is actively looking for startups that develop innovative “Home Energy Management Systems” (HEMS)
Households are essential for the energy transition and HEMS can help realise significant savings on their energy bills by shifting and reducing consumption based on flexible energy tariffs. More importantly, by integrating more appliances, and cleverly controlling them using advanced (AI) solutions, households not only benefit themselves but also contribute to the electricity grid and our planet.
HEMS are hardware- and software-based solutions, such as a smart thermostat that connects with different appliances in your home, including solar panels, charge points, heat pumps and home batteries.
The benefits?
HEMS are hardware- and software-based solutions, such as a smart thermostat that connects with different appliances in your home, including solar panels, charge points, heat pumps and home batteries.
The benefits?
- Reduce and optimize energy production and consumption.
- Save money.
- Reduce peak loads and provide grid balancing services.
- Reduce carbon footprint.
For example: in the summer months, solar panels typically provide more power than a household consumes. A HEMS will make sure that the electricity produced will first be used by the appliances in the home, and that the surplus production will be stored in the home battery first, or fed into the electricity grid if prices at that moment are high. It is the customer who decides which decisions the HEMS may make at home. Consequently, learning from consumption behaviour, and using AI, it will then autonomously optimize local energy production, consumption and storage. To be able to do that, the HEMS will collect and analyze thousands of data points – including the customer’s consumption patterns, weather forecasts, dynamic tariffs and grid capacity tariffs.
A real-life household experiment conducted in Finland using a very simple HEMS system reducing and shifting electricity consumption using weather data, humidity and flexible electricity tariffs was able to reach energy savings of up to 30% for these households. In another study, the savings that could be reached were up to 40% when used in conjunction with more appliances such as solar panels and home batteries, whilst reducing peak loads for the grid by more than 50%.
Eneco Ventures is the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) arm of Eneco, one of the largest utilities in the Netherlands, with approximately 6 million clients in the Dutch, Belgian and German markets. We think HEMS can contribute to Eneco’s ambition of becoming climate neutral by 2035 and can enable smart energy management solutions for whole neighbourhoods – so-called ‘Energy Communities’.
Are you a start-up active in providing HEMS services in Europe, or do you have an innovative solution for Energy Communities? Then we are looking for you! As the CVC of Eneco, we can offer you much more than just funding, such as access to our client base, to our energy assets, as well as extensive market expertise. We are very much used to working with and helping grow promising startups. Contact us at ventures@eneco.com!
A real-life household experiment conducted in Finland using a very simple HEMS system reducing and shifting electricity consumption using weather data, humidity and flexible electricity tariffs was able to reach energy savings of up to 30% for these households. In another study, the savings that could be reached were up to 40% when used in conjunction with more appliances such as solar panels and home batteries, whilst reducing peak loads for the grid by more than 50%.
Eneco Ventures is the Corporate Venture Capital (CVC) arm of Eneco, one of the largest utilities in the Netherlands, with approximately 6 million clients in the Dutch, Belgian and German markets. We think HEMS can contribute to Eneco’s ambition of becoming climate neutral by 2035 and can enable smart energy management solutions for whole neighbourhoods – so-called ‘Energy Communities’.
Are you a start-up active in providing HEMS services in Europe, or do you have an innovative solution for Energy Communities? Then we are looking for you! As the CVC of Eneco, we can offer you much more than just funding, such as access to our client base, to our energy assets, as well as extensive market expertise. We are very much used to working with and helping grow promising startups. Contact us at ventures@eneco.com!
