GreenSync eyes global opportunities

Software company closes $11.5 million Series B round

A recently closed $11.5 million funding round will help Australian company GreenSync take its software platform to the world, says the company’s founder Phil Blythe.

GreenSync today revealed details of the Series B funding round, which included $5 million from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation through the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, and $5 million from Southern Cross Venture Partners through its Southern Cross Renewable Energy Fund. The remaining capital was provided by a private fund, Greensync said.

Blythe founded the company in 2010 and it had its first commercial launch with a customer in 2012 — Queensland’s Ergon Energy — making 2017 GreenSync’s fifth year of working with energy utilities.

GreenSync’s core software platform is designed to manage and orchestrate distributed electricity generation and storage systems.

“Distributed energy is a major transformational shift that we’re seeing in Australia, and Australia is very much at the forefront of this globally,” Blythe said. “As solar goes on roofs, as there’s an increase in renewables, as we’re starting to move away from coal-fired generation to wind and solar energy, we needed a quantum shift in the technology we use to manage grids.”

“No longer are we just using massive systems — generators that we’re switching on and off,” Blythe said. “We’ve got literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of smaller generators on rooftops that we need to schedule.

“Essentially what we provide is a software layer that connects into all of those types of resources — whether they’re solar, or they’re battery storage systems — to control and coordinate and orchestrate those resources to bring stability back into the grid.”

GreenSync helps deliver monitoring, control and optimisation of these systems, he said.

Although the platform initially targeted electricity network operators, the customer base has broadened to include energy retailers and end users, ranging from industrial sites to residential estates.

Customers include United Energy, which last year entered a partnership with the software company for a Mornington Peninsular project. The Community Grids Project will help defer capital investment by managing peak energy demand in the region, including through the use of solar and energy storage systems to reduce household consumption.

GreenSync also revealed last year that it was working with AusNet Services on a Mooroolbark energy minigrid project. The minigrid involves a group of 14 neighbouring houses that will be fitted with solar power systems and 10 kilowatt-hour batteries. Each house, which will also have a standard connection to the electricity grid, will be able to generate and store electricity that can then be shared with the other houses.

Blythe said the Series B funding would help commoditise GreenSync’s technology so that utilities around the world can start to use it ‘out of the box’.

“We’ve set up an office in Singapore and we’re using it as a growth hub into Asia,” he said. “Asia’s very much an important growth market for battery storage systems.”

“There is huge potential for GreenSync internationally and with our strong market position in Australia, we look forward to starting the journey of mapping the global grid,” Blythe said.

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