Powering the future of energy intelligence: Our Investment in Electricity Maps
The Missing Data for Demand Flexibility
One thing is clear in today's rapidly evolving energy landscape: the traditional models of energy production and consumption must undergo profound transformation for net zero power to become reality. The target of tripling global renewables generation by 2030 brings the challenge of unprecedented intermittency, inadequate grid storage capacity, and the risk of widespread supply-demand mismatch.
In the face of this challenge, energy consumers have emerged as a critical party. If grid-connected devices could be coordinated to consume energy when green electrons are abundant and save energy when they’re not, we could rely less on fossil baseloads and minimize the cost and delay from additional infrastructure buildout, thereby accelerating the green transition.
Optimizing for this demand flexibility is a win-win for both our climate goals and the energy user’s bottom line - renewables in many parts of the world are increasingly cost-competitive with fossil power. Thanks to this dynamic, we will likely see a future world where billions of grid-connected systems, from data centers to electric vehicles, harness data to access greener and cheaper power.
However, this vision relies on a unified source of granular, real-time grid intelligence, which our energy systems are far from being able to provide. In Europe alone, electricity is generated by over 80 “main” utilities and distributed through a cross-border network of 400+ interconnectors (high voltage cables). All this is overseen by 40 transmission systems operators based in 36 countries. This means that data is scattered and siloed, blank spaces exist that require assumptions and modeling, and accurate forecasts are elusive.
Enter Electricity Maps
Electricity Maps was built to fill this critical information gap.
In 2016, founder Olivier Corradi and his team of data scientists began to gather grid data from dozens of disparate sources, harmonize them through a standardized methodology, then assess carbon intensity on a uniquely granular level.
Transparency and openness defined their approach from the start. Instead of relying solely on their team of in-house experts and private methods, Electricity Maps created an open source community, working together with 300+ contributors from over 80+ countries to discover and vet new data sources, hone methodology, and debate issues. Through this collaborative process, the platform has become one of the most prevalent and trusted data providers on real-time power production, transmission, and consumption, as well as carbon intensities, for over 200 regions across 50+ countries worldwide.
The impact of their data grows by the day. Electricity Maps now serves over 10 million API requests per year by researchers, policymakers, and corporate clients from over 40 companies. Their data has enabled Google Cloud to optimize data center power usage around carbon intensity, and is used by Samsung’s smart home app to inform customers about emissions from their appliance use.
Furthermore, Electricity Maps provides a free app and opens portions of its data for personal and academic use. Their platform has provided a basis for influential studies on the power demands of machine learning & AI, the electrification of industrial heat, and carbon accounting methods. Their data has also informed energy-related journalism by the likes of Bloomberg, The Telegraph, and others.
Now, we are proud to share in a new stage of Electricity Maps’ journey. The company has raised their next round of funding, led by our friends at Transition, with us doubling down on our support. Electricity Maps will use the additional funding to fulfill its vision of becoming the global data layer for grid decarbonization.
We could not be more excited about this upcoming chapter and the massive positive impact that Electricity Maps will have.
For more details, see TechCrunch’s coverage of Electricity Maps funding round.