The spin-off of the IT service provider Adesso wants to use its software to determine when electric cars should be optimally charged.
Only a good 80,000 electric cars are still allowed in Germany, but market observers expect that the number will rise sharply in the coming years. For power grid operators, the continuous growth is not without problems. Charging many electric cars at the same time, this can lead to new peak loads and network congestion.
This is where Urban Energy comes in. The newly founded spin-off of the Dortmund based IT service provider Adesso distributes software that is to calculate when charging processes are most useful for the network. The idea is, charging e-car owners only at the proposed time, they pay less. Such a shift would be possible if the vehicle is not needed for a long time, for example, during work or at night.
Urban Energy was founded by Paul Dittrich, David Stolz and Stephan Thies. Her former employer Adesso has a 20 percent stake in the startup, as well as Phoenix Contact Innovation Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Westphalian electrical engineering manufacturer. The shareholders are financing Urban Energy with a seven figure amount.
No own hardware
According to Dittrich with their software platform, they are targeting municipal utilities, the end of business operations and the housing industry. Power grid operators should not benefit from this, but companies with their own photovoltaic systems should also be able to use charging management to maximize self-consumption instead of feeding their green electricity fully into the grid.
Hardware is not produced by Urban Energy and the software is based on Artificial Intelligence docks to the charging stations via the Internet. Used would be for common protocols, says Dittrich. Conversations with the first possible customers are already in progress. The currently only five headed team is now expected to grow significantly. However, Dittrich promises to be able to handle larger projects by now. They can always rely on the expertise of Adesso.
For some time now, the IT service provider has become more involved in startup investments. So Adesso had joined the Essen startup Socerwatch.tv almost two years ago. Other holdings include, among others, the IoT company Com2m and the health startup Nucaria. Phoenix Contact has also been active as a venture capitalist for some time and has already invested in five other startups. The company is also the lender of the High-Tech Gründerfonds and the regionally oriented technology fund OWL.