grid-flexibility
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The $100 Box That Turns 400,000 Homes Into a Power Plant
A former commodities trader noticed homeowners were flying blind on their own electricity. So he sold them a $100 box - and started wiring 400,000 basements into a grid-scale power plant.
Emulate Energy
Emulate Energy is a Lund, Sweden cleantech company that builds white-label software turning everyday household devices - EV chargers, heat pumps, home batteries and solar inverters - into a coordinated, grid-ready fleet. Its platform lets utilities, retailers and grid operators connect, control and monetize distributed energy resources: cutting household bills, shaving grid peaks and unlocking flexibility-market revenue without asking customers to change tariffs or behaviour. Founded in 2020 on control-theory research from MIT and Lund University, Emulate runs live programs across Europe and the US.
Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP)
Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP) is an infrastructure developer and holding company that builds and operates businesses reshaping how energy and digital systems work together. Founded inside Alphabet in 2017 and spun out as independent in 2019 by Sidewalk Labs veterans Jonathan Winer and Brian Barlow, SIP raised $400 million in 2020 backed by Alphabet and the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. It identifies bottlenecks in physical infrastructure, then pairs technology with capital to create new operating companies - most recently Renew Home, a roughly one-gigawatt residential virtual power plant, and Verrus, which designs large-scale data centers that flex their grid draw on demand.