National Grid Partners pledges $100M for AI energy startups

National Grid Partners (NGP), the venture capital and innovation division of National Grid plc, has announced a $100 million investment commitment to artificial intelligence (AI) startups focused on advancing the energy sector. The funding aims to support the development of a more efficient, resilient, and dynamic energy grid.

The investment is driven by the increasing challenges faced by power systems like National Grid’s, including soaring demand from datacenters and the electrification of heating and transport, along with the need for greater grid flexibility due to the growth of renewable energy sources and electric vehicles (EVs). NGP says that AI can help.

As part of this commitment, NGP announced its latest investment in Amperon, a provider of AI-powered energy forecasting and analytics solutions. Since its founding in 2018, NGP has invested over $150 million in 18 AI startups focused on energy innovations, representing 37% of its portfolio.

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NGP, which claims to be the utility industry’s only Silicon Valley-based corporate venture group, highlighted several examples of how its portfolio companies are strategically engaged with National Grid business units:

• AiDASH: Uses satellite data and AI to monitor infrastructure, reducing outages by 30% in Massachusetts by identifying hazardous trees near power lines.
• Exodigo: Employs AI and sensors to map underground infrastructure, avoiding costly mistakes during expansion projects in New York.
• Luminance: Provides legal-grade AI to automate contract negotiation and analysis, accelerating clean energy and smart grid asset deployment.
• Sensat: Uses AI to create digital twins of infrastructure, speeding up project completion and reducing costs for substation upgrades and data center connections in the UK.
• Urbint: Develops an AI-based risk management platform that predicts threats to infrastructure and worker safety, reducing pipeline damage and identifying more potential field-worker hazards than manual methods.

NGP also convenes the NextGrid Alliance, a network of over 120 global utility companies focused on adopting new technologies.

Featured image credit: National Grid Partners