16-04-2024

Yokogawa and GridBeyond conclude investment and strategic partnership agreements

Yokogawa Electric Corporation and energy IT solutions provider GridBeyond of Ireland announce that they have concluded a strategic partnership agreement. Furthermore, Yokogawa has participated in GridBeyond’s Series C funding round.

GridBeyond leverages its own unique AI services, robotic trading, and other capabilities to provide an efficient electricity aggregation service that identifies suitable opportunities in the wholesale electricity market, where actually generated electricity is sold, ancillary service markets, where future electricity supply capacity is sold, and capacity markets, where short-term demand and supply balancing capacity is sold. The company has the know-how to help its customers maximize profits by taking market prices and other forecast data, facility constraints, and market opportunities into consideration to determine the best transaction plan for their facilities, and then automatically perform real-time bidding in these three markets. GridBeyond has more than 900 client sites in Ireland, the UK, the US, and Australia, and a track record in managing loads exceeding 1.7 gigawatts. Based on the knowledge gained through these activities and the latest information on electricity market conditions, it ensures trading strategies are always kept in an optimum state.

Soaring electricity prices can have a large impact on businesses, especially those with manufacturing facilities that use large volumes of electricity. Through a demand-response mechanism whereby users refrain from power use in times when there is a tight balance in power supply and demand, electricity trading allows businesses to generate additional income while helping to fulfill their responsibilities to society by stabilizing power supply and demand.

On the basis of this strategic partnership agreement, Yokogawa and GridBeyond will work together to provide consulting and operational services for the implementation of electricity trading, and thereby help customers use electricity more efficiently. With GridBeyond’s distinctive know-how and achievements in providing virtual power plant solutions and Yokogawa’s extensive experience in providing consulting services to manufacturers, the two companies will be able to propose and assist in the implementation of effective measures that will help customers maximize profitability.

Mark Davis, GridBeyond’s Chief Commercial Officer, commented: "We are delighted to announce our collaboration with Yokogawa Electric. This partnership not only supports our ongoing expansion in Japan by supporting Japanese businesses towards their net zero goals, but will also allow GridBeyond and Yokogawa to work together in other global markets too. Yokogawa Electric is a leading company in Japan and internationally, and we look forward to this new collaboration."

Koji Nakaoka, a Senior Vice President of Yokogawa Electric and Head of the company’s Energy & Sustainability Business Headquarters, said: “Yokogawa has gained the trust of its customers by leveraging its knowledge and innovative, high-quality technologies to provide measurement, control, and information solutions that contribute to stable operations and streamline operations at manufacturing sites. Going forward, we shall help our customers increase their profits and implement ESG management by combining Yokogawa’s specialization in operational improvement with the energy management solutions of our Group company PXiSE Energy Solutions and the electricity trading services of the globally-proven GridBeyond to provide one-stop solutions for the streamlining of electricity use.”