Georgia:

Hello, and welcome to another season of “Watt's up with energy?”, a gridX podcast. I'm your host, Georgia Knapp, content manager here at gridX.

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This season, we're going to be talking about the energy technology that is at the nucleus of what gridX does and what we're about, home energy management systems, or as we like to call it, HEMS.

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For the next three episodes, I will be joined by Robert van der Meulen, our head of growth services.

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So hi, Robert. Thanks for joining me.

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Robert:

Hey, Georgia. Thanks for having me.

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Georgia:

So, can you give me a little bit of background on what brought you into the energy world and possibly to gridX?

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Robert:

Sure. Thanks for asking.

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So, what brought me into the energy world? I think I have to go back a couple of years when I was studying chemical engineering at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.

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My majors were all about chemistry and the chemistry part of energy. So, thermodynamics, mass transfer, energy technology and all the chemistry around burning fossil fuels, actually.

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On the one hand, this was super interesting because you really dive deep into the things that hold us together, like on a molecule level. However, this tech-only perspective – me personally, I missed out on something.

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So I took extra classes in energy economics, where I learned a lot about how our energy system is built, what players are active in that, how energy is dealt with.

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And I took also extra classes in environmental topics, like material flows, where I've learned so much about carbon dioxide and what kind of impact it has on our planet. So, and this really caught my attention.

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So, there was this old energy economy, which needed to transform massively, driven by, not by straight economical reasons, but due to reasons of climate change, for example.

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And since the energy system is something our entire society is built on, which I like to call the backbone of our society, it has also the social aspect of it.

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And this is a mixture of dimensions, like the technical, the economical, and the social aspect, which really captivated me until today.

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Georgia:

Okay. So, just to rewind just a tiny bit, because you said you first started with chemical engineering and you said the burning process that creates fossil fuels? That is what you said, right?

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Robert:

So the chemistry around burning fossil fuels, what's the chemical reaction behind burning wood, burning coal, burning gas?

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Georgia:

Okay. Was that because you were expecting to go into a more, like, would you call that a traditional energy sector, like oil, gas or was it just energy?

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Robert:

No, it was energy, and I would say it was just like how the studies was organized by the university as well. So, it was just a major part of it.

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And since renewables back in the days were not, like, on top of every mind, it was still the old economy which was, or the old energy industry which was talked about.

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Georgia:

Okay, because, yeah, I think now in universities, I would assume you can get degrees in green technology, renewable energy?

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Robert:

Definitely.

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Georgia:

You must. I feel like I'm making myself sound extremely old right now, as if that happened like 30 years ago. Can you tell me a little bit more about what exactly it is you do at gridX as the head of growth services?

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What kind of customers do you support? And can you provide any examples of how you help them effectively roll out an energy management solution?

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Robert:

So maybe to better understand what me and my team's role at gridX is, I would briefly talk about what gridX does.

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gridX specializes in building digital solutions for energy management systems, right? With the focus on so-called DERs, Decentralized Energy Resources, such as PV inverters, battery storages, wallboxes or even heat pumps.

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And for those solutions, or for those DERs, gridX provides the technology platform XENON and energy management software designed to optimize the flows, the energy flows and the management of the DERs.

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What we noticed in numerous customer projects over the last couple of years, is that it's not enough at this time to simply tell the customer, here's our technology, please build your business on top of it and start rolling out. And this is why we introduced our team Growth Services, because what we see is that the market and the end customer products are becoming more and more complex with the increasing integration into the energy market.

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So it's not only the optimization behind-the-meter, it's getting more and more in front-of-the-meter as well. And, for example, leveraging the value of flexibility. And this integration of the DERs into the energy market is still at a very early stage.

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So what we recognized is that especially during this stage, it is super crucial for us as a technology provider to work closely with our customers, including in the area of business development. And that is what my team does. We support our customers during the implementation and rollout phases of their commercial products.

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So we discuss with our customers a lot about what's their go-to-market strategy, such as what is the value proposition of their products? What is a suitable pricing strategy? What sales channels could they activate for promising scaling numbers? Or how would they organize their support for end customers?

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And this is basically a task that me and my team does. And the best thing is what we recognize is we have – and the best thing, we are increasingly noticing that the demand for our expertise across all gridX teams is growing in that area, which is a really nice confirmation for our services.

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What we're also noticing at the moment is that we can further improve our product and accelerate our customer rollouts even more effectively when we establish strategic partnerships with other players in the Presumer ecosystem and integrate them in our product offering. And this is what we call the gridX ecosystem.

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So my team is looking for strong partners in the area of hardware manufacturers, energy providers, market access providers. All of them are already for themselves working on a super complex product. But putting them together is super necessary in the end to build a seamless customer experience and a nice prosumer product.

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So to give you an example of this, what I mean with this is the Ready for gridX program, which we just launched, where we focus with strong hardware manufacturers on the topic of interoperability. And we bring the collaboration between an EMS provider and a hardware provider to the next level.

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Another example is, for example, in Germany, our partnership with the Rabot.Charge, an innovative tariff provider, which we have integrated in our platform, so our partners don't have to look for themselves for a suitable energy provider.

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Georgia:

Okay, nice. Our last season was actually all about interoperability, and Tim and I definitely touched upon gridX a good bit – not gridX – Ready for gridX a good bit.

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So, this actually now takes me into the overall topic of this season. And so one question I have, this summer we participated in The smarter E fair here in Munich. And when we had our booth there. One thing I noticed was that a bunch of people were coming over and saying that they had heard of energy management systems, they knew what EMS was, but they didn't necessarily know what home energy management systems were.

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I was wondering if you can speak about what is the difference between these two and if there even is a difference between these two.

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Because I thought it was, I thought they were complete synonyms until people kept coming up and asking about that.

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Robert:

Yeah, sure. I think there was no difference in that.

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It is just in the end, the target group you were looking at, like EMS system is kind of a general word for energy management system, and energy could be managed anywhere.

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Like you have energy demand, right? So, but you're right, EMS is most of the time used in, typically refers to systems used in large scale settings, such as commercial buildings, industrial facilities or utility grids.

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So, they manage and optimize energy usage across complex operations.

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When you talk about home energy management systems, you refer to one single household, and you manage the energy flows around this household.

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So, your wall box, for example, when do you want to charge your car? Your energy production from your own PV panels included with the battery, as well as your heating system.

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And combining all this within the home, that's home energy management system.

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Georgia:

Okay. And then, how did energy management systems in general evolve? Like, what were some of the earlier basic versions like compared to today's solutions?

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Robert:

Oh, that's a good question. So, I like to talk about it in three phases.

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Like, we have the HEMS 1.0, you have a HEMS 2.0 and you have a HEMS 3.0. But let me dive deeper into what I mean with that.

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So, what I understand in HEMS 1.0, there were systems that we have today largely rolled out already.

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So, you have your de-central assets, like a PV system and a battery, or a wallbox, and it's all about monitoring energy flows and simple behind-the-meter optimizations.

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The HEMS monitors the PV surplus generation, for instance, and it controls the battery or wallbox to load in times of surplus energy, or even decides not to load in times of no PV production.

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So, that's basically a very basic use case.

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Of course, there's already a challenge for the HEMS 1.0 in interoperability between these asset classes from different manufacturers. But we come to that later, I guess.

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The HEMS 2.0 is when the HEMS is becoming more dynamic. With 2.0, the HEMS is getting more input parameters than just the surplus production of the own PV plant.

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It can also consider basic signals from the energy market, such as dynamic energy prices.

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So, for example, you have low energy prices during midday, when the PV production is quite high in the grid.

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You have loads of PV on the market, on the energy market, and energy providers just forward you super low prices or even negative prices to use that energy, because they have to get it anywhere.

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And so you are kind of a – yeah, you can hire your demand and you don't pay for it, or you pay less for it than in times when there is no PV production, for example. So you get an incentive from the market. And if you consider this, this could be managed by a HEMS 2.0.

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And currently, we are exactly in this transition phase between the HEMS 1.0 and 2.0, because we see more and more dynamic terrors come into the market.

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And we see that these decentralized plans are able to proceed these signals.

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And this is exactly where we had with our solution, like coming from a HEMS 1.0 self-sufficiency optimization, for example, moving towards optimization based on dynamic tariffs.

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Georgia:

Okay. And actually, just a second ago, you mentioned behind the meter. You said something was behind – could you, just in case there's any listeners who don't know what that means, could you explain. I know we'd use behind the meter and front of the meter.

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Could you give a really quick explanation about what those two terms mean?

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Robert:

So, behind the meter optimization is an optimization which is within the household decoupled from what is happening in front of the meter.

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So, where the energy grid, like the public grid comes into play. So, you don't consider too much of that.

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You just say, okay, for your household, you make the best out of it with your own PV production.

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With the in front of the meter, you consider more input parameters in the optimization equation, if you want to say it very technically.

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When you considered signals from the DSO, for example, to balance the grid, you consider energy prices, and you are way more integrated into the public grid, which is in front of the meter.

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The meter is always referring to the grid connection point of your house.

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So, basically, the power meter where your energy tariff provider is getting the information on what should he bill you, what energy did you use, and how high your bill will be.

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Georgia:

Okay. The thing my landlord always wants me to go downstairs and take a photo of.

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Robert:

Exactly.

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Georgia:

Got it.

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Robert:

And in Germany, we don't have smart meters, so it's kind of a pain you really have to go downstairs and do the photo.

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Georgia:

All right. Thank you. Sorry. I think you were still, you're talking about HEMS 2.0, or the transition we're in between right now?

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Robert:

Exactly. And then if you look at the future, which is becoming more and more present today as well, the HEMS is becoming even more dynamic than just from dynamic terrors, optimization.

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The HEMS has to deal with even more parameters. As I just talked about in front of the meter optimization, it considers not only monitoring self-consumption, optimization, basic market signals, but you will also consider signals from the DSO trying to stabilize the grid using decentral assets for that.

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Not only the big assets, large scale assets, but also the household assets. You can get signals from the balancing parties that are responsible to balance their market areas, and you get input from flexibility markets, for example.

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Or even if you talk about in different countries, it's different value, but you can also talk about energy communities to use the energy locally. So share it with your neighbor, for example.

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And of course, things like bi-directional charging of electric vehicles will also become a part of that, and a new use case, too.

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So HEMS 3.0 is really a really complex thing that has to be managed, but it will, and that's the good thing, the energy system will benefit from it.

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So the total cost of the national energy system in total will be reduced.

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And on top of that, the end customers can not only save money, but also earn money with their assets.

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Georgia:

Okay. And then you – I think you may have been answering this already, but which features in a HEMS would be considered the most essential?

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Robert:

So what a HEMS has to provide is basically four different areas. You talked with Tim in the last episode about interoperability a lot.

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This is a key aspect.

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So let the wallbox talk to a PV inverter, to a heat pump, and make it all speak to each other.

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So interoperability is key here.

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As said, the next step is the energy market implementation, so that you can receive these signals from the market, and you can decide how you steer these assets.

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Then the logic of steering is key.

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So that is where gridX comes into play as well, where you talk about different use cases and orchestrating different values at different times.

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So it could be that you have your own production, for example, of the PV system, and you have lower energy prices in the market.

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What do you do? Like, how does the system should react?

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And of course, in the end, a HEMS system is not only a technical thing.

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In the end, it's about product that the end customer is buying and using.

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And so you need very good brands and product companies who really build on top of this tech stack, I would say, really nice product that the customer accepts.

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Georgia:

Okay, yeah. No, that makes sense.

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So with our own HEMS solution, we always talk about starting with the basic self-sufficiency optimization solution, and then you add more complex and valuable use cases step by step.

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What would be an example of these more complex or valuable use cases? Like, what exactly gets added?

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Robert:

So we at gridX, we believe in that value-stacking approach. This is something you or...

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Georgia:

We wrote a blog about it, and we compared it to a tiramisu, I believe.

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Robert:

A tiramisu? What is that?

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Georgia:

It's a layered dessert, like a cake.

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Robert:

Okay.

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Georgia:

And we compared it to...yeah, the layers of a tiramisu, like they're all equally delicious. You need a stable foundation, a solid foundation. The solid foundation is the HEMS. The cake.

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And then you stack on top of that. And it's, I think, a little bit up to you, how you want to stack it.

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Robert:

So what you describe is what we call “value stacking approach”.

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That means, as a company, who wants to build an HEMS business around our technology, they can actually start today with use cases that have already a great majority level, or what we call a great product market fit today.

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So monitoring and self-sufficiency optimization were, from an end customer perspective and from a technology perspective, the easiest to roll out at the beginning with.

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Now, as said, the HEMS 2.0 is becoming more standard, so you have kind of a trickle down effect with, for example, optimization towards dynamic tariffs.

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And what is super important that you, because you don't change the EMS or the HEMS system, if an end customer has one, this will be the HEMS system, in our opinion, this will be the HEMS system they have bought and they will be using the next years.

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So what HEMS providers have to think of, what kind of HEMS technology will they focus on? And that should be one that is anticipating the majority level of different use cases and different regulatory states.

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So they built in one infrastructure, I like to call it infrastructure, of an HEMS today, to be able to offer new products based on new features tomorrow.

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So the decision to be made, what kind of HEMS system an end customer should use, or our partners should use, is made today.

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But then you can do over-the-air updates and enable new use cases.

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Georgia:

If someone was listening right now, they're like, oh, HEMS sounds like something I want in my house. How exactly, like what would be the first steps?

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Is it to get a PV and then a HEMS? Or is it like, do you need the PV and the battery in the hems?

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What would be the first things you have to do besides probably contact your energy provider and ask if they work with gridX?

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Robert:

So I would even say, as an end customer, you are not aware that HEMS systems exist. And I'm not talking about the first movers.

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I'm talking about the masses here. So...

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Georgia:

That's true.

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Robert:

You wouldn't actively search for one.

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Georgia:

Yeah.

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Robert:

So the question is...and that's actually a challenge for our partners as well, like how to market a HEMS system, and through which channels do you reach your customer base?

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And...

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At this moment, most of our partners run or...

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As of today, our partners, most of our partners, they build the HEMS system or sell the HEMS system to the end customers in bundle with a new PV plant, for example, or a new wallbox.

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So the end customer is actively searching for hardware because they want to get an PV system, for example, or they want to get a wall box because they just briefly bought an electric vehicle, and they want to charge it at home.

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They're looking for hardware, and with that hardware, the HEMS system come into the house.

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That's, as of today, the quite usual way how to get an HEMS system.

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Georgia:

Got it. So the end user is already somebody who is interested in green technology, and they've already actively started looking for a PV, an EV, a battery.

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So now my last fun question for you is, if you could create a HEMS solution for any celebrity, who would they be? And what's your HEMS solution?

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Robert:

Oh, wow. That's a tricky one.

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Georgia:

My personal thought was Madonna in Portugal, because I think her house, if she doesn't already, she could use a lot of PVs, because you get a lot of solar energy in Portugal.

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Robert:

But the question is, like, most of the celebrities are super rich, and HEMS is about saving money most of the time, so they might not even think about that.

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So I would choose Taylor Swift.

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Georgia:

Oh, no. I was going to say, don't choose Taylor Swift, because the Swifties could come after us.

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Robert:

Exactly, but the Swifties are a super nice fan base to buy the electricity Taylor Swift is producing on their many of rooms, right?

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Georgia:

Actually, that's super true.

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Robert:

It's a good new money machine.

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Georgia:

We should get Taylor Swift to be the spokesperson of HEMS. Taylor, if you are listening, please contact us. Our Instagram is @getgridx.

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Okay, but that's Taylor Swift, so that she would advertise it to the Swifties.

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Robert:

Exactly. It's a new value stream. Enable the new value stream.

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Georgia:

I like it. I know in the US, she made headlines for a little while for using her private plane a little bit too much. Dear Swifties, please don't kill me. I'm just repeating what I read.

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I don't know. Maybe we could... I don't know if a plane can't use home energy management system, but she's got a house somewhere. She could use it there.

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Robert:

Maybe she will be flying electric in some years from now. That's very...

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Georgia:

Yeah, she's very progressive.

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All right. Thank you so much, Robert.

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And I will see you for our next episode.

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Robert:

Thank you. See you soon.

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Georgia:

If you'd like to learn more about the world of renewable energy or energy management systems, be sure to check out our website, gridx.ai, where we produce regular blogs and glossaries about the subject.

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You can also follow us on LinkedIn, or on Twitter and Instagram @getgridX.