The $12m round was led by noa (formerly A/O) and was joined by Elewit, EDP Ventures, Draper Cygnus, Draper B1, Ascent Energy Ventures, Fen Ventures, Reaction Global, Barn Investments, and the UC Berkeley Foundation, among others.
This capital will be used to support the company’s work in addressing the global challenge of clean energy at scale, expanding its North America and EU presence and will be used to continue to grow its development, implementation, and leadership teams to keep up with growing demand.
Grid congestion, also known as grid bottlenecks, is a shortage of transmission capacity caused by the grid’s reliance on outdated contingency management methods that leave up to half of grid transmission capacity unutilised. These bottlenecks lead to up to 40% of renewable energy generation being wasted and thousands of gigawatts of renewable energy projects waiting in queues to be connected to the grid.
As electrification increases across all industries, renewable energy supply and efficient grid operations are essential to meet growing demand. Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) such as rooftop solar and batteries are booming, but until now the industry has lacked the technology to manage them at scale.
Splight has developed a new AI-based technology for advanced grid operations that tackles grid congestion using inverter-based resources (IBRs) as a source of reliability. It also significantly accelerates the deployment of DERs and batteries. Its technology uses real-time data and algorithms to use IBRs as grid-friendly assets.
By using Splight technology to tackle contingencies in real-time, up to 2x of extra transmission capacity is unlocked, enabling terawatts of clean energy to be injected into the grid while simultaneously adding reliability. The no-tradeoff solution is transformative for grid operations: Splight’s tech is the key to prevent clean energy being wasted and facilitate the deployment and connection of renewable energy, DERs, and batteries at the pace needed and with the existing transmission infrastructure.
“Our technology is proven and commercially viable: we are solving grid congestion while adding reliability. It can be deployed fast enough to inject more than 3,000GWs of clean energy within months. This round is a huge vote of confidence and will be used to expand our business globally”, said Fernando Llaver, CEO of Splight.
Thomas Vadora, CTO of Splight, added, “This investment is a significant milestone on our journey and will accelerate our growth, enhance our product offerings, and deliver huge value to our customers.”
The funding round attracted diverse investors, including climate tech and energy specialised venture capital firms, industry leaders, and university endowments. The investors have a global footprint covering the UK, the US, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Argentina.
