The ability of software to analyze data and make real-time decisions has reshaped electricity use across applications ranging from electric vehicles and energy storage to data centers and virtual power plants. In the case of EVs, the ability to optimize charging time and monitor battery health means less grid strain and longer ranges. For energy storage, understanding the rates of charge and discharge, as well as cell imbalances, and available capacity allows systems to provide a greater share of energy at a more consistent rate. Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) could not exist in their present form without energy management software, while data centers require a strict level of oversight to prevent downtime or server harm.
Alongside the growth of grid monitoring technologies discussed in the second installment of this series, battery intelligence software has also grown. Giovanni Rossi, Chief Marketing Officer of Electra AI, a Boston based software and artificial intelligence company, explained during a July call with The Energy Pioneer that the foundation for battery intelligence, especially in the EV space, is not only the complexity of the model but the data itself. This is particularly true for Electra AI, as their software algorithm needs to be customizable depending on the use-case and application flexibility. As Rossi explained, trying to simulate battery activity without clean data would be like attempting to diagnose a patient without the required information.
With the constant reminder of how much more powerful battery hardware has become in recent years, I was curious whether battery monitoring could offer tangible improvements in battery life or discharge. Rossi explained that their testing on EVs, including Tesla and Stellantis, saw a 30% increase in lifespan and a 20% increase in range.
If battery lifespan in EVs can be improved to that degree with proper software monitoring, my mind immediately jumped to the potential that this could offer for grid storage. Ruchira Shah, Head of Software Product Management at Wärtsilä Energy Storage, and an energy and maritime decarbonization leader, outlined just how impactful software tracking of energy storage can be. As Shah explained, battery software monitoring really boils down to knowing how much energy is currently available for charging and discharging. She outlined how the tools currently available, such as cell imbalance analysis and battery health analytics, help provide that valuable insight. One example is the company’s GEMS battery optimisation and analytics platform, which helps power entire islands.
Joe Arena, Chief Commercial Officer at Parameter, an energy and environmental monitoring company, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing the importance of monitoring technologies, particularly as they relate to monitoring data center infrastructure. This has grown in importance as operators are increasingly desperate to avoid any downtime. The costs associated with an unplanned outage, especially in high compute environments, means that companies are adopting software solutions that allow for the fastest response. Parameter’s technology can be easily integrated into existing infrastructure, allowing the company to deploy it for battery monitoring. By monitoring batteries at each point along the electrical chain, from UPS to switchgear, to generator sets, they can track problems before an outage is created across the system.
While monitoring energy assets is often the main focus of operators, tools such as GridRails AI, a grid orchestration company, allow for broader involvement in the distributed energy industry. By providing tools like real-time incentives, such as payment for linking EVs to the grid, for thousands of assets, they can offer grid flexibility while providing value for a broad user base. As GridRails AI Founder and CEO Michael Grasso outlined during a call with The Energy Pioneer, only 20% of distributed energy resources (DERs) are currently participating in virtual power plants (VPPs). With peak energy demand expected to continue rising, Grasso explained that there is available supply to match this demand; it simply needs to be onboarded and used in real time.
The ability for new technologies to scale the adoption of VPPs is something that California based Leap, a VPP software platform, has been doing since their founding. Isaac Maze-Rothstein, Associate Director at Leap, explained in a July call with The Energy Pioneer, that the VPP market has shown exciting growth, but there are still challenges in scaling usage. To address these challenges, Leap’s software allows for the easier creation of VPPs through a technology agnostic approach and a single point of integration. By being tech agnostic they can use the same platform to work across different battery technologies, simplifying as many aspects of VPP creation and implementation as possible.
With the hardware advances of the last two decades driving renewable energy development, EV adoption, data center capabilities, and energy storage, software has evolved alongside these technologies to help manage and optimize increasingly complex energy systems.
