Strathclyde's most successful spin-out
Smarter Grid Solutions is one of the University of Strathclyde’s most successful and innovative spin outs. Through its software products, it has transformed active network management of electricity grids across the UK and globally as the energy sector transitions to low-carbon power sources.
The company creates systems that allow solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable energy devices to be connected to existing electricity distribution networks, keeping down the cost of expensive grid upgrades and managing on-site energy and carbon footprints.
Its technology also allows companies to take part in the emerging market for grid services, flexing their local energy assets up or down to help balance the grid, while selling excess power to the wider market.
Since the company was spun out from the University in 2008, its products have reduced carbon dioxide emissions by two million tonnes, the equivalent of taking 165,000 combustion engine vehicles off the road.
The University also supported the company’s technology as a co-investor in the funding rounds through its ‘Strathclyde Inspire Investment Fund’ (SIIF) and its co-founder Graham Ault is former Strathclyde academic who was behind the research that led to SGS.
The Glasgow-based energy software company was acquired by US-based Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc. (MEPPI), a subsidiary of Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, in August 2021. This will enable it to scale up its contribution to tackling the climate emergency by helping more grid operators across the globe to connect more renewables to their networks and energy developers to add more clean energy assets to their fleets.
More about SGSGenerating electricity from renewable energy is not only essential for powering homes and businesses but will also be key to introducing low-carbon transport and heating, producing the clean energy that will be needed to charge electric vehicles and run electrically-powered heating.
SGS has already helped to connect more than 400MW of renewable capacity to networks in the five countries where it has live systems today, helping to save grid operators more than £200m in expensive infrastructure upgrades.