Smart Grids are attracting an increasing number of young entrepreneurs. Their young companies need support to design the innovative services of tomorrow. For some years now, the French government has set up initiatives to support and develop the potential of these French start ups, as well as to give them national and international visibility. Several programs have been launched in such as the FrenchTech label in 2013, the IPME program and the GreenTech Green initiative, whose first incubator was inaugurated in early September.
Incubator inauguration by Minister Ségolène Royal – Photo Credit: Yann Piriou
GreenTech Verte
On 8 September 2016, Ségolène Royal inaugurated the first “Green Tech Verte” incubator on the campus of the Cité Descartes. 49 start-ups were selected following calls for projects and competitions for their innovative projects in favor of renewable energies, the environment, or energy performance. The winners will be able to benefit from technical, financial and personalized support as well as access to all the scientific and technical resources of the Ministry.
Among these young companies, some are planning to revolutionize the field of renewable energy and smart grids: a round of these young companies ready to storm the Smart Grid market.
The Fidelise company therefore offers small and medium-sized companies using electric motors the opportunity to reduce their final energy consumption by limiting reactive power consumption through network analysis campaigns, loss detection and remotely controllable actuators.
Demand Side Instruments, also focused on energy-saving has developed a solution allowing real-time balancing of electricity consumption and production in smart micro-grids, thus facilitating peak shaving. In addition to saving energy, it is now possible to redistribute energy.
Sunchain offers energy transfer solutions for the owners of photovoltaic systems. In case of excess production, the excess energy is sent to another place of consumption such as a second home or an electric vehicle charging station.
La société Sunchain propose des solutions de report d’énergie pour les propriétaires d’installation photovoltaïque. En cas d’excès de production, le surplus d’énergie est envoyé vers un autre lieu de consommation comme une résidence secondaire ou une borne de recharge pour véhicule électrique.
These owners of photovoltaic installations will also be able to use the solution developed by LeRéseau, winner of the #CounterConnect hackaton. This innovation aims to connect small producers and consumers of renewable energies, in order to involve them in the local energy mix. Each user thus has a right to look at the source of his energy, but also on the choice of his producer.
La FrenchTech
The FrenchTech initiative was launched in 2013. The aim of this label is to structure and promote French start-up ecosystems in France and abroad, and to create momentum at the national level. The labeling of ecosystems allows starts up members to have better visibility as well as financial and technical support. To date, thirteen “French Tech Metropolis” have been labeled since the launch of the program.
These labels reward the work of local initiatives within each city administration. The label subsequently established Thematic Networks. The objective of this initiative is to group the French ecosystems by theme in order to encourage the exchange and grouping of starts up by activity. Nine themes have been identified following consultation with national ecosystems.
Among these, the # CleanTech # Mobility theme brings together all companies developing solutions related to: renewable energies, energy efficiency, electric mobility, Smart Grids and Smart Cities. The theme includes competitiveness clusters such as Systematic and private entrepreneur associations such as CleanTech Open France, which organizes an annual competition to identify and reward the best young French eco-innovative companies from the main national networks. Some related Smart Grid projects can also be associated with the #IOT theme or # Security # Privacy.
#CleanTech#Mobility cluster members
Initiative PME
Other support programs have also been launched by the government such as “SME Initiatives” in partnership with ADEME. The aim of this initiative is to strengthen the innovation capacity of SMEs. The winners of the initiative program benefit from co-financing for targeted research and development projects. The program helps to accelerate the development of these young companies and the deployment of new technologies and services. Some startups have been rewarded for their innovative solutions in the field of intelligent electrical systems: BeeBryte offers consumers the option of deferring their consumption of electricity using home-based batteries, and so as to be billed when energy is the less expensive. Edison Ways also offers a unique approach to achieving lighter and less expensive smart power grids by wiring up to 5 times more installations for the same amount of metal. Several award-winning companies are moving towards energy efficiency, data management and the development of smart sensors such as Fludia and Eco-Adapt.
List of winners in the category “Intelligent Electrical Systems”: BeeBryte, E-Sim, Edison Ways, Fludia, Griddle Communications, Ixel, Kapteos, Novener, Qualisteo, Solunergie, Win MS & WattGo.
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