ENGIE (formerly GDF SUEZ), has announced they have invested in KiWi Power, a UK demand response aggregator, through its corporate venture capital company ENGIE NewVentures. This investment will see ENGIE support the privately owned energy technology company’s plans for growth and development of its client base in the UK and Internationally.
ENGIE is committed to offer new services in energy management to its large and global client base. KiWi has developed a technology and extensive industry expertise within the demand response, energy management and smart grid space. The potential for synergies is large.
Demand response is an innovative solution being increasingly relied upon to help System Operators balance demand and supply on national energy infrastructure networks. Commercial electricity consumers such as industrial and manufacturing plants, office buildings and public sector sites like hospitals can use demand response to reduce electricity demand on the network when energy usage is at peak levels. Demand response offers participating organisations a range of benefits including a recurring revenue stream, reduced overall electricity expenditure and improved sustainability credentials. Most importantly it is a cleaner and more efficient method of grid balancing than traditional peaking power stations.
Gérard Mestrallet, CEO of ENGIE said: “Attention to demand response has increased significantly in the past year, becoming a more mainstream priority for System Operators, governments, utilities and investors internationally. We want to be able to continue to offer our customers a wide variety of commercial solutions that work for almost every company under every set of circumstances.”
“ENGIE believes in demand response as an environmentally-friendly and revenue-enhancing service for customers, a way to meet the challenges of the energy transition to a low carbon economy and further integration of renewable sources of generation. KiWi Power’s customer-friendly solution, real time metering, technology and automated processes have a lot to offer commercial customers in this respect. ”
Yoav Zingher, co-founder and CEO of KiWi Power said: “There are many opportunities opening up in the marketplace and our fast growth to date is indicative of our agility and drive to harness technology and innovation to bring new solutions to tackle the challenge of balancing energy demand and supply.”
