Viennese startup "enspired" drives the energy transition through artificial intelligence

Jürgen Mayerhofer represents Austria as Mission Innovation Champion.

The continuously growing share of fluctuating generation from wind and photovoltaics is an integral part of the energy transition, but is pushing power grids to their limits. As a result of the COVID-19 measures, electricity consumption in individual countries has collapsed by as much as 23%, further aggravating the imbalance between generation and consumption.

Power grids need flexibility to respond quickly to fluctuations. Such flexibility can be increased by investing in new facilities such as battery storage. An alternative is to leverage existing flexible generation or consumption facilities by participating in the short-term power market – but this is time-consuming and, above all, almost impossible for smaller market participants to manage.

"Through full automation and the use of artificial intelligence, we can also offer smaller market participants cost-efficient access to the short-term power market," explains Jürgen Mayerhofer, CEO of enspired GmbH. Mayerhofer has recently been named Mission Innovation Champion for Austria by a global initiative of 24 countries and the European Commission.

The Mission Innovation Champions program was launched in 2019 to celebrate outstanding individuals and innovators who are developing novel ways and innovative solutions to accelerate the energy transition. The declared goal is to promote the international exchange of ideas and talents in order to build up and support a community of visionaries from science and industry around Mission Innovation. "We need bright minds and innovations to achieve the climate and energy transition. We sincerely congratulate Mr. Mayerhofer on this highly deserved award", says Michael Paula, Head of Department Energy and Environmental Technologies at the Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology.

The innovative service of enspired is based on the fully automated optimization of flexibility with direct connection to the European power exchanges. Compared to traditional energy companies, where energy traders work with up to 15 screens simultaneously to keep all relevant information in view, enspired's self-learning systems take over this task and independently execute power transactions directly on the exchange.

The aim of enspired is to provide access to the short-term energy market for as many flexible systems as possible, thus increasing the flexibility of the power grid as a whole and thus advancing the energy transition.

enspired GmbH

enspired is a digital electricity trading service provider based in Vienna. Our service enables companies to actively participate in the short-term electricity market and is especially focused on the commercial optimization of flexible power systems. Through the targeted use of artificial intelligence and advanced trading algorithms, we increase the profitability of plants in the market and actively promote the energy turnaround.