SwitchDin is a Newcastle, Australia-based energy technology company that builds software and edge hardware to make distributed energy resources (DER) - rooftop solar, home and grid batteries, EV chargers and controllable loads - visible, controllable and orchestrable at scale. Its Stormcloud cloud platform and Droplet edge controllers create a common, vendor-neutral language across different brands of inverters and batteries, letting utilities, retailers and network operators run microgrids, virtual power plants and flexible-export programs. Founded in 2014 by Dr Andrew Mears, the company works with major Australian utilities including Horizon Power, Ausgrid, AGL, Origin and Western Power, and helped deliver a world-first renewable-only microgrid run in Onslow, WA.
Illumine-i is a power and design engineering firm that provides turnkey engineering support for solar PV, battery storage, EV charging, substations, and grid infrastructure. Founded in 2015 by former Tesla and Sunrun engineers, the company works with EPCs, developers, independent power producers, and lenders - handling everything from preliminary feasibility to construction-ready permit packages, plus independent and owner's engineering. It has engineered more than 3 GW of clean energy across 200,000+ projects and complements its solar roots with construction-focused BIM/VDC and MEPF design services.
Chris Griffin is the co-founder and CEO of Hover Energy, a Dallas company that builds patented Wind-Powered Microgrids - arrays of 36kW rooftop turbines paired with solar and storage that let commercial buildings make their own clean power. An aerospace engineer turned Wall Street financier turned clean-energy entrepreneur, Griffin spent roughly two decades chasing the same idea before one of his rooftop systems rode out 105 mph gusts during Hurricane Ian. He has since taken the technology international, with a Royal Navy installation in Liverpool and a joint venture to scale deployments for blue-chip clients.
Nanna Nielsen is the Chief Business Officer of Critical Loop, a Los Angeles-area industrial power company that helps factories, airports and data centers get electricity in days instead of years by pairing battery storage with autonomous control software. A Danish-born operator who once ran banking operations for fintech unicorn GoCardless - overseeing more than $52 billion in transactions for 93,000+ businesses - she now applies that same operational rigor to fixing America's grid bottleneck. The company raised a $26 million Series A in April 2026.