247. AI powered EMS behind the meter - Sep26

In our series: How AI is revolutionising Energy, Laurent and Gerard dive deep into the intricate corner of Energy Management system for large industrial clusters.  You would believe that legacy providers such as Siemens, Schneider Electric or Hitachi would provide such solutions. They are not. Indeed, they provide legacy Scada systems which are hardware linked and bottom up. There is no glue to optimise them as a group and deliver access to Energy markets.  Two young Belgian engineers have decided to address this blind spot and come up with a new generation of software: AI powered EMS. That is what Companion Energy has achieved. We bring in its CEO Thomas Vyncke.  Most of the European energy conversation still focuses on front-of-the-meter flexibility: batteries, renewables and other assets participating in wholesale and balancing markets. Thomas’ thesis is that an equally important — and much less developed — opportunity sits behind the meter, inside large industrial and commercial companies.  The problem is complexity. Every enterprise site is different: different tariffs, contracts, generation assets, batteries, EV fleets, boilers, industrial processes, grid constraints and operating requirements. The opportunity therefore isn't simply to buy cheaper electricity or optimise one battery. It is to continuously optimise the entire energy system of the site against its operational and financial reality.  That is what Vyncke and co-founder Jonas Verstraeten are building with Companion.energy, founded in 2022. The platform provides transparency on energy costs and automates optimisation across complex behind-the-meter environments.  The company says it currently optimises more than €500m of energy spend and 350+ MW of assets across Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Romania, working with companies including Proximus, TotalEnergies and Port of Antwerp-Bruges. It recently raised a €7.8m seed round to support international expansion.  And it is just the beginning…   With the energy industry's largest proprietary dataset, world-class experts and decision-grade models, all powered by Synoptic AI, Wood Mackenzie delivers Intelligence Connected across the energy and natural resources landscape.