Utilidata – which was founded in 2012 – is a technology company that is bringing distributed artificial intelligence (AI) to the edge of the electric grid to accelerate decarbonization and better serve utility customers. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Utilidata CEO Josh Brumberger to learn more about the company.
Josh Brumberger’s Background
Josh Brumberger has been at the intersection of business and politics, serving in senior roles at the Office of the Rhode Island General Treasurer as well as national political campaigns.
“This background really informs my view that great technology alone is not enough; it’s also about the ability to bring people together and the will to make a change,” said Brumberger. “With that focus, Utilidata strives to make meaningful change by engaging everyone – technology, public policy, utilities, and community advocates.”
When I asked Brumberger about his thoughts on the industry, he emphasized that it would be nice to see a forward-leaning utility create a new position: Chief Decarbonization Officer. And that individual should be given the same quarterly metrics and clout that the Chief Financial Officer has.
Formation Of Utilidata
How did the idea for Utilidata come together? “We developed a software technology to improve the efficiency and operations of the distribution grid through real-time grid control and decision-making,” Brumberger shared. “As more people adopt electric vehicles, distributed solar, batteries, and heat pumps, we realized there is a need for decentralized decision-making and to bring that real-time visibility to the edge of the grid, where electricity connects to customers at their homes and businesses. So, we shifted our focus a few years ago to the edge of the grid where there is the most complexity and the most change – as it’s the critical nexus between customers, their investments in clean energy, and the utility system.”
Favorite Memory
What has been Brumberger’s favorite memory working for Utilidata so far? “Our company retreat in late 2022. We were coming out of Covid, had made a bunch of new hires, and were gaining a lot of commercial momentum,” Brumberger reflected. “There was so much positive energy in the room. Being in person with that group of smart, passionate, good-hearted people is food for the soul. Yes, that last sentence is both cheesy and accurate. We had the event at the Boston Museum of Science and did a workshop with an improv comedy troupe. We’re definitely stronger as an organization. Can’t wait to do it again this year.”
Challenges Faced
What are some of the challenges you face in building the company and has the current macroeconomic climate had any effect on the company? “It’s clear that we’re at a tipping point for our electric grid with the convergence of clean energy, electric transportation, and climate change, but change takes time. It’s incredible to see what we can do as a society when we act with a sense of urgency – like during the COVID-19 pandemic – but it’s hard to drive the sense of urgency to adopt new technology in time to manage the exponential change we will see and the impact on the grid. I’m always reminded of the quote ‘Nothing can happen for decades, and then decades can happen in weeks,’” Brumberger explained. “In addition, utilities are risk-averse and veer far away from a fail-fast mentality because the stakes are so high – when the power goes out, it can be catastrophic. Empowering utilities to adopt new technologies and transform the way they have always operated – from a centralized management perspective to a decentralized operating model – takes time and trust.”
Partnership With Brooks Utility Products
In late April, Utilidata partnered with Brooks Utility Products, which has been known as a manufacturer of electric metering-related products for over 150 years. “We wanted to be able to manufacture the smart grid chip in the U.S., with a partner who is trusted in the industry and has experience manufacturing similar hardware devices at scale,” Brumberger pointed out. “Their location in Michigan will help bring Utilidata’s technology to the region’s growing tech market, and give us a great opportunity to work closely with the University of Michigan and recruit engineering positions at our Ann Arbor-based innovation lab.”
Utilidata’s innovation lab is based in the Northern Brewery building in Ann Arbor and serves as the company’s center of excellence for rapid prototyping and design. This facility was intended to build on the company’s work with Ann Arbor-based Endectra, a University of Michigan spinout that prototyped the first several generations of the smart grid chip product. Utilidata will utilize the talent from the University of Michigan and other local institutions as it starts to recruit for several immediate high-tech engineering jobs at its lab in Ann Arbor.
Utilidata’s Business Development Lead is a University of Michigan alum who connected the company with Ann Arbor-based Endectra to prototype the first several generations of the smart grid chip product.
“We decided to expand our presence there with a lab space and came upon the Tech Brewery building. There is no better place to be innovating than in Michigan — at the intersection of the electric transportation, manufacturing, and technology industries. Catching a game or two at The Big House in the coming years doesn’t sound all that bad either,” Brumberger commented.
Core Products
Utilidata’s smart grid chip (powered by NVIDIA) is a new kind of solution that operates at the edge of the grid where peoples’ investments in EVs, solar, and other clean energy solutions connect to the electric grid. Currently, the company’s smart grid chip is installed on a meter, using a meter adapter, and is designed primarily for grid operations, using AI to unlock robust data from every customer endpoint.
Through a combination of on-chip and cloud-based software, the smart grid chip collects and analyzes large amounts of granular data to provide utilities with real-time visibility of grid conditions to:
— Increase grid capacity and accelerate solar connection waiting periods
— Manage EV charging demand
— Reduce/offset expensive infrastructure upgrades
— Avoid outages and recover from outages quickly
Plus it is an open, software-defined platform that evolves and becomes more valuable over time with continuous software updates and flexibility – similar to today’s smartphones.
“We also have a legacy software solution that uses machine learning to optimize voltage in real-time, making the grid more efficient, and making it easier for utilities to integrate more solar onto the system. This technology is deployed at scale with major utilities like American Electric Power and National Grid,” Brumberger revealed.
Importance Of Computing And Distributed AI For The Grid
Why does the grid need accelerated computing and distributed AI? Brumberger told me that the clean energy transition brings new and complex challenges to how the electric grid is operated. And the way people supply and consume energy is becoming increasingly complex with the rapid increase in solar, electric vehicles, storage batteries, and electric home heating. Plus the grid is antiquated and unprepared to manage these new complexities and requires advanced technology to provide safe, clean, reliable, and affordable energy.
“Most modern industries, including transportation, shipping, internet service, and healthcare, are using distributed computing with AI-enabled tools to improve operations and manage complex and decentralized systems. On the grid, these technologies will enable grid operators to predict grid conditions and recommend decisions in real-time,” Brumberger emphasized. “Processing data locally with accelerated computing allows grid operators to respond at the pace of change. The millions of distributed energy resources need to be strategically orchestrated to shift consumption and generation based on current grid conditions, reducing the demand to better match the supply of clean energy resources. Today, grid operators are manually forecasting and monitoring energy loads with minimal automation. Distributed computing with AI-enabled tools identifies patterns in large volumes of data and makes predictions to enable operators to better utilize grid assets in real-time and make split-second decisions based on different scenarios.”
Evolution Of Utilidata’s Technology
How has Utilidata’s technology evolved since launching? Utilidata evolved from a voltage optimization company managing grid assets in real-time for a central operating system to developing technology for the grid edge with its smart grid chip to better manage the millions of distributed energy resources installed by customers.
Significant Milestones
What have been some of Utilidata’s most significant milestones? In 2021, Utilidata partnered with NVIDIA to build its smart grid chip, the industry’s first software-defined distributed AI platform. That same year, Utilidata launched its advisory board to help guide the development and deployment of the smart grid chip and share its vision for bringing AI to the edge of the grid to accelerate the clean energy transition and better serve customers.
Customer Success Story
Upon asking Brumberger about a customer success story, he cited a partnership with Portland General Electric, which is their first major utility customer to deploy the smart grid chip in 2023 with more customers to be announced in the coming weeks. Through its advisory board, the company brought leaders from several utility companies, GM, and Sunrun together in Ann Arbor to visit our innovation lab and strategize on the continued development of the smart grid chip.
Funding
Utilidata raised $26.75 million in funding in February 2022 to support the development of its smart grid chip AI platform.
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is Utilidata pursuing? Currently, the smart grid chip is deployed via a meter adapter.
“There are 160 million meters in the US and 1.9 billion globally. We envision expanding beyond meters to other devices at the grid edge,” estimated Brumberger.
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates Utilidata from its competition? “We’re not only focused on the technology but the business model, the regulatory environment, helping our customers navigate change management within their organizations,” Brumberger affirmed. “We’re really focused on making sure that the utility equipment at each customer’s home can deliver more value for those customers. The smart grid chip will make it easier for customers to connect their investments in solar or EVs to the grid – and get maximum value from those investments, as well as make the system more resilient. That’s especially important with more severe weather – like we saw earlier this year with the ice storm in Ann Arbor.”
Plus Brumberger noted that the company’s platform is the only software-defined solution for the edge of the grid as opposed to static hardware-centric designs.
“It’s also the only solution using accelerated computing, essentially a supercomputer, which provides the memory and speed to effectively manage the complexity of the grid,” Brumberger added.
Future Company Goals
What are some of Utilidata’s future company goals? “Utilidata intends to deploy the smart grid chip at scale throughout the utility market and successfully transform how the grid is operated to better serve people,” Brumberger concluded. “We are also exploring opportunities outside the US where grid capacity is already an issue and people and businesses are experiencing years-long waiting periods to connect new construction or solar to the grid. Through these efforts we plan to continue to expand our team – we’ve already doubled from less than 30 employees at the start of 2022 to 60 today.”
