Intellihub targets gigawatts of behind the meter capacity with GreenSync buy

The push to harness Australia’s massive, world-leading rooftop solar resource has gained new momentum this week with the acquisition of Melbourne-based energy tech specialist GreenSync by Brookfield-backed smart meter business, Intellihub.

Intellihub, a 50/50 joint venture between Pacific Equity Partners (PEP) and global asset manager Brookfield, announced the “recently completed transaction” on Tuesday, as a move that would unlock gigawatts of consumer generated energy and demand-side control.

Of particular value to Intellihub, which operates in Australia and New Zealand, is GreenSync’s cloud based distributed energy resource (DER) interoperability software, or Decentralised Energy Exchange, better known as deX.

DeX connects millions of DER, including virtual power plants, inverters, battery storage systems, monitoring solutions and other ‘behind the meter’ products, enabling tradable energy services and expanding the reach of existing VPPs.

It was launched from Melbourne in 2017 with the attention and backing of the vast majority of Australia’s major energy market players – from the gen-tailers to the market operator AEMO – and then officially opened to registrations in 2018.

Since then, Greensync’s digital automation and control solutions have been deployed across New Zealand, the UK and Japan, while in Australia deX is playing a key role in both the South Australian and West Australian grids, managing those states’ huge rooftop solar uptake.

Intellihub CEO Wes Ballantine said the acquisition was strategically important to the company, with the 1GW of renewable capacity currently it already has sitting behind its smart meters expected to grow to 3GW within the next few years, and with electric vehicles increasingly coming into the mix.

“The deX platform is perfectly geared to partner with the edge computing capability in our new smart meters to access this flexible generation via VPPs,” said Ballantine on Tuesday.

“Together they unlock value for retailers and consumers and help to stabilise the grid and absorb more renewables.”

GreenSync CEO Bruce Thompson said 95 per cent of major global solar and storage inverter manufacturers were  using the deX platform, giving it a front row position as grid connection requirements change and the national electricity market adapts to a two-way flow of electrons.

“Combined with deX, we bring together the most cost-effective, smart, scalable solutions for electricity retailers, network providers and equipment manufacturers,” he said.

The companies said that GreenSync would become part of Intellihub’s new technology development arm known as CrescoNet, which was being led by experienced energy and smart grid engineer Adrian Clark.