May 23rd, 2024 — The electrical grid is becoming more complex to manage as distributed energy resources (DERs) and renewables proliferate. This complexity is exacerbated by aging physical infrastructure, increasing extreme weather events that strain the grid, and an aging and retiring workforce — issues that significantly threaten utilities’ ability to reliably provide electricity to their customers. Grid orchestration technologies allow utilities to proactively utilize DERs to optimize grid capacity, which can significantly reduce outage hours.
ThinkLabs is building an autonomous orchestration copilot that empowers control room operators to effectively operate the modern grid. Launching from GE Vernova — which has a leading share of the Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS) market and will be a primary channel partner for ThinkLabs — ThinkLabs’ autonomous orchestration capabilities are a critical step towards supporting the grid during the electrification and renewables era.
The modern grid is becoming more complex and is facing a challenging operating context, which threatens reliability
Modern grids face significant risks to reliable operation due to increasing DERs and renewable generation, aging physical infrastructure, extreme weather, and retiring utility professionals.
These risks have become particularly salient in recent years, and more robust orchestration capabilities are urgently needed to ensure that DERs are operated in a manner that optimizes network capacity, while maintaining grid reliability.
Based on our analysis, the grid orchestration market is expected to be worth $10B per year by 2030.
Control room operators lack tools to reliably operate the grid
Historically, utility control room operators were able to balance generation and load by managing a small number of centralized power producers. However, there are now tens of millions of assets on both sides of the meter that can be controlled in order to balance the grid, and these assets send and receive power in far less predictable ways than large plants and their steadier, one-way flow.
Control room operators lack real-time situational awareness of the grid and don’t trust the data coming from their current systems.
It is increasingly difficult for operators to manage the grid and make good decisions under time pressure without highly nuanced and specialized technology solutions, a situation that will only become more complex as the world electrifies and the climate crisis intensifies.
ThinkLabs provides control room operators with capabilities needed to reliably operate the grid
Control room operators engage with ThinkLabs’ product through a copilot user interface that is displayed on a screen in the control room and integrates directly with existing ADMS and planning systems already used by utilities and sold by incumbents like GE Vernova. The ThinkLabs copilot is powered by a proprietary digital twin of the grid, which includes AI algorithms that generate grid models and provide analytics based on these models. These AI algorithms are validated against the physics of the grid to prevent the AI from delivering unrealistic answers.
ThinkLabs provides real-time state estimation capabilities as well as more efficient scenario planning — both are critical to resolving network issues before they lead to outages.
ThinkLabs also provides a model accuracy index and model validation capabilities that enable operators to understand how confident they should be in the system outputs based on the accuracy of the underlying data.
By making data from a variety of existing utility systems actionable, ThinkLabs reduces the time that it takes to train and onboard new operators as more experienced operators retire.
ThinkLabs offers a tiered SaaS model for its product, with recurring revenue based on the total number of utility end customers served. Critically, ThinkLabs will leverage GE Vernova’s sales organization as a differentiated initial go-to-market channel, and ThinkLabs will be bundled with GE Vernova ADMS sales.
Powerhouse Ventures is proud to co-lead ThinkLabs’ $5M seed round with Active Impact Partners, with additional participation from Blackhorn Ventures, Amplify Capital, Mercuria Energy, and a national US energy company. We look forward to working with Founder & CEO Josh Wong and the entire ThinkLabs team to build the digital backbone of the modern grid.
Special thanks to Gabriel VanLoozen, Marie Thompson, and Jessica Makolin.
To read more about our work at Powerhouse and Powerhouse Ventures, visit our Insights page.