smart-energy
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Jon Kornik Is Teaching the Grid to Ask Homes for Help
The Plentify co-founder spent a career financing clean energy. Then he found a cheaper grid resource hiding in plain sight: the household appliances already waiting to be told when to switch on.
SolarEdge Technologies
The Israeli company that made every solar panel report for duty individually - and then had to fight its way back from a near-death inventory crisis.
EliTe Solar
EliTe Solar is a Singapore-headquartered photovoltaic manufacturer founded in 2005 that designs and produces solar wafers, cells and modules for utility, commercial and residential customers in more than 30 countries. With manufacturing across Vietnam, Indonesia and a new hub in Egypt, the company has shipped over 10GW of modules and has been ranked a BloombergNEF Tier 1 manufacturer continuously since 2012, positioning vertical integration and low levelized cost of energy as its core pitch.
Plentify
Plentify is a South African climate-tech company that builds AI-driven hardware and software to intelligently manage home energy use. Its flagship device, HotBot, is a smart controller for electric water heaters (geysers) that shifts heating to when power is cheaper and cleaner, while its SolarBot companion maximizes solar self-consumption. Founded in 2017 by Jon Kornik and Kailas Nair, Plentify links water heaters, batteries and solar inverters into a coordinated energy platform that cuts household electricity costs and eases pressure on strained grids. The company raised a roughly $15M Series A in 2025 to expand from South Africa into the UK, Australia and Brazil.