virtual-power-plant
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Generac
How a generator built in a Wisconsin barn became the machine millions of Americans buy the week after the power goes out - and why Generac now wants a say in the grid itself.
Base Power Company
Base Power is an Austin-based energy company that installs large-capacity home batteries and sells electricity to homeowners as a licensed Texas retail electric provider. Founded in 2023 by Zach Dell and Justin Lopas, it pairs whole-home backup with low fixed rates, using its growing fleet of distributed batteries as a virtual power plant that charges when power is cheap and discharges when the grid is strained. The company raised a $1 billion Series C in October 2025 at a $4 billion valuation and is building its own battery factory in Austin to scale nationally.
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.
KiWi New Energy
KiWi New Energy is a Taiwan- and Silicon Valley-based clean energy company building what it calls the operating system for global renewable energy. Rather than manufacturing more solar panels, KiWi focuses on the AI dispatch layer between generation and consumption: its AI-Driven Energy Datacenter (AI-EDC) matches clean supply to multi-site retail and SME demand in real time, aggregating fragmented buyers into virtual demand pools and using blockchain-certified renewable energy certificates to make green power traceable. Its deployments include a rare control-layer integration with Tesla Energy storage for FamilyMart convenience stores in Taiwan, plus customers like Decathlon and Wang Steak. Founded by serial energy entrepreneur Dr. Steve Huang, the company reached breakeven in 2025 and is expanding into Japan and the United States.
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.
AGent Energy
AGent Energy (branded AiGent) is a Houston-based energy-tech company that uses AI software and secure hardware to aggregate, orchestrate, and monetize idle backup generators at commercial, industrial, and mission-critical sites. By connecting these behind-the-meter assets to wholesale power markets during peak demand and grid emergencies, AGent turns standby liabilities into dispatchable, revenue-generating distributed power plants - improving grid reliability without building new infrastructure. The company is targeting a roughly 185 GW fleet of existing backup generation across the U.S.
Recurve
Recurve is a San Francisco / Mill Valley-based climate software company that turns behind-the-meter customer devices - smart thermostats, heat pumps, EV chargers, batteries - into reliable grid resources. Its FLEX platform uses revenue-grade smart-meter data and open-source measurement methods (OpenEEmeter / CalTRACK) to let utilities, regulators and aggregators design, run and verify demand-flexibility programs and pay for performance. In effect, Recurve builds the market plumbing for virtual power plants, so the grid can lean on millions of small homes and businesses instead of a single new gas peaker plant.
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.
SPAN
SPAN builds smart electrical panels that turn the most ignored box in the house into the control center for solar, batteries, EVs and heat pumps. Founded in 2018 by former Tesla Powerwall lead Arch Rao, the company sells to homeowners through installers and to utilities through its SPAN Edge program for grid-edge load management.