The electrical grid has changed more in the last decade than in the preceding five. Solar, wind, and batteries have pushed power generation away from monolithic producers. But fundamentally, the grid still suffers from the same challenges.
“The problem on the grid is a peak problem. Most of the time you’re okay, you have plenty of power. But in those peak hours you might not have enough,” Michael Phelan, co-founder and CEO of GridBeyond, told TechCrunch.
Today, those shortages are most acutely felt by tech companies and data center developers, which need large amounts of electricity to train and operate AI models.
“But if you have enough energy stored in a battery or you have an industrial load you can turn down — and it’s hundreds of megawatts — then you can start building those hyperscalers,” Phelan said.
GridBeyond has been building hardware and software to stitch together disparate parts of the grid to behave as larger virtual power plants. The startup already manages around 1 gigawatt of solar, batteries, wind, and hydropower, and on the demand side, it has “several gigawatts” across commercial and industrial facilities, Phelan said.
To expand its portfolio, GridBeyond recently raised a €12 million ($13.8 million) equity round led by Samsung Ventures, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. Other participating investors include ABB, Act Venture Capital, Alantra’s Energy Transition Fund, Constellation Technology Ventures, EDP, Energy Impact Partners, Enterprise Ireland, Klima, Mirova, and Japanese electronics and software company Yokogawa.
The startup has its hardware controllers installed in batteries and renewable power plants along with large commercial and industrial facilities in Australia, Ireland, Japan, Ireland, the U.K., and the United States.
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Like many virtual power plant companies, Dublin-headquartered GridBeyond got its start on an island. As Ireland began adding wind power, Phelan said, “they hit th …