Ireland’s fastest-growing smart grid company establishes Melbourne base

IRISH Smart Grid technology company, VIOTAS, has established a base in Melbourne from which it will deliver its leading-edge Demand Response (DR) services to commercial and industrial electricity consumers throughout Australia from 2021.

Supported by Enterprise Ireland for its market entry, the company, which specialises in the development of technologies that enable electricity consumers to earn revenue by providing critical services to the power system, has earmarked Melbourne as a regional hub from which it will roll-out further operations throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

VIOTAS was founded in 2013 in Limerick, Ireland with a mission to enable zero-carbon power systems by harnessing the flexibility of electricity consumers to accelerate the use of renewable energy on the wider power system.

The company’s services leads to a reduction in the continued reliance on fossil fuel generation to balance renewable generation by instead contracting large electricity consumers to provide this balancing function and other, higher-value services that ensure the reliability and security of the power system. By reducing the percentage of power reserved for fossil fuel generation in-turn increases the percentage of zero-carbon renewable generation that can be delivered by the power system.

For VIOTAS’s commercial and industrial clients, by electing certain non-critical electricity loads to be automatically reduced at key times, they will receive payments in the same way that power stations do for generating electricity. This presents a significant opportunity at times when the wholesale electricity market price reaches highs of $14.50 per kilowatt-hour.

The company’s high-speed technology boasts the ability to detect and react to power system issues faster than the blink of a human eye, enabling their Demand Response clients to access a broader range of high-value payments that are typically the domain of grid-scale batteries.

VIOTAS has been the fastest growing Demand Response provider since entering Ireland's highly competitive market and was titled Ireland’s fastest growing technology company in the 2019 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Awards.  The company’s disruptive technology has played a key role in shaping their home market as Ireland has, by necessity, turned to innovative solutions to achieve increasingly ambitious national renewable energy targets.

“Our services are underpinned by our best in class technology that is designed from the ground up to meet the challenges associated with integrating increasing amounts of renewable energy onto the power system," VIOTAS co-founder, CEO and CTO, Paddy Finn said.

"We are a company that looks towards the future, and Australia, a country whose coat of arms symbolises moving forward, never backwards, clearly shares our view of the world. We are excited to deliver our services to commercial and industrial clients in Australia to help facilitate the use of more renewable energy on the wider power system in a way that retains value in the economy.”

While investing heavily in its global expansion, VIOTAS has focused its attention on Australia as a key market on account of the challenges arising due to the increasing prevalence of renewable energy on the power system. Ireland’s response to similar challenges in recent years is highly regarded as a global exemplar by power system operators worldwide.

VIOTAS Australia managing director, Michael Zammit said, “I am truly delighted to be leading VIOTAS Australia having seen the extent of what they have achieved in Ireland. The technology behind our services is complex but our business model is simple; we generate significant revenue for our clients, improving their competitiveness, and retaining value in the Australian economy.”

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