Advanced smart tech is placing new demands on our electricity grid, but it is also providing incredible new opportunities for an intelligent energy evolution.
We’re getting more plugged in every day, but where are we plugging in the things we plug into? The intelligence of our devices—from our phones to our cars to our thermostats—can only realize its potential if the electricity grid is smart enough to play along. The brains of the grid, of course, reside in computer servers, and Canada’s own Opus One Solutions is the purveyor of the software that tells them how to think.
With Opus One’s GridOS software platform, utilities gain the ability to optimize complex power flows in real-time and leverage the power of data analytics and machine intelligence to secure grid resiliency, efficiency, and sustainability. In our rapidly changing energy landscape, however, optimal grid planning and management is a moving target, especially as the amount of power, both literal and figurative, in the hands of the consumers goes through the roof.
Blurring the line between utilities and consumers
“This is the first time that grid consumers are really being empowered as active participants,” says Hari Suthan, Chief Strategic Growth Officer at Opus One Solutions. “With the adoption of electric vehicles, for example, there are terawatts of new mobile energy storage being connected. That’s storage that can draw power when energy is abundant, and give power back when demand peaks. But we have to shift gears to think about how we operate in a world where energy resources are being driven around. It’s a complicated problem, but it’s also a huge opportunity for efficiency and reliability if it’s managed properly.”
Pursuit of an elegant answer to this conundrum has led Opus One to acquire the SEEsuite software business division, including the flagship SEEload technology, from TRC Companies in the US. For more than a decade, SEEload has been the key for American utilities in seamlessly integrating new distributed energy resources (DERs) like electric vehicles and home solar to the grid. “SEEload has successfully served the nation’s top utilities,” says Joshua Wong, CEO of Opus One Solutions. “The acquisition provides Opus One with the opportunity to capitalize on the growth of the market and continue to meet the needs of our clients with advanced innovative solutions for future energy projects.”
Breaking trail for a decentralized and decarbonized grid
As new green energy resources are increasingly found embedded in the places where people work and live, solutions like this are essential to lift the fog of war and illuminate what is happening in the corners where the grid has not historically been able to see. “This acquisition lets us go from end to end on the grid,” says Suthan. “It provides access to insight and control on the edge of the grid. This is our ‘last mile’ solution.”
The acquisition of SEEsuite is just the newest piece of the puzzle in Opus One’s continued expansion, both in scope and geographical reach. The Global Cleantech 100 company has grown beyond their roots in Toronto to serve a truly international market in the pursuit of a better, smarter, and cleaner energy infrastructure. Essential to that growth is keeping one step ahead of the curve with technologies like SEEload, as the pace of innovation in energy is not slowing down any time soon. “There are so many new energy technologies out there, and the cost keeps coming down, but we are still in the nascent stages of harnessing them as a society,” says Suthan. “There is a lot more integration that is going to happen over the next ten or fifteen years and we need to be ready for it.”
