{"id":38653,"date":"2023-10-20T14:58:01","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/sydney-startup-evergen-raises-3-7-million-to-take-australian-first-smart-energy-offering-to-the-people-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:58:01","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:58:01","slug":"sydney-startup-evergen-raises-3-7-million-to-take-australian-first-smart-energy-offering-to-the-people-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/sydney-startup-evergen-raises-3-7-million-to-take-australian-first-smart-energy-offering-to-the-people-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney startup Evergen raises $3.7 million to take \u201cAustralian first\u201d smart energy offering to the people – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Sydney-based startup Evergen has raised $3.7 million as it takes \u201cAustralia\u2019s first intelligent home energy system\u201d to the market.<\/p>\n

Evergen is a renewable energy tech company offering an intelligently-managed solar and battery system for households that was originally developed at the CSIRO.<\/p>\n

The startup has just closed a $2.9 million funding round from AMP Capital and former chief executive Stephen Dunne, along with an $800,000 investment from the CSIRO.<\/p>\n

Following a year of trials and tests, Evergen CEO Glenn Platt, a prominent energy scientist, says now it\u2019s all about going to market and expanding rapidly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s to enable us to grow,\u201d Platt tells StartupSmart<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see that there\u2019s an amazing market really kicked off next year, which we estimate to be upwards of $20 billion eventually. We\u2019re very keen to scale and grow dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n

A smart system<\/h3>\n

Platt says that Evergen combines solar energy and batteries with smart technology that continually analyses and optimises home energy costs in order to select the most efficient energy source.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re an energy services company that tries to reduce our customers\u2019 and clients\u2019 electricity bills,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s our number one focus \u2013 to reduce complexity in their lives and make things simpler and easier for them.<\/p>\n

\u201cIntelligent is the key word \u2013 we\u2019re taking other people\u2019s solar panels, other people\u2019s batteries and putting really smart control communications and optimisation on top of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"evergen<\/p>\n

This smart technology can learn the power consumption patterns of a household and combine this with weather forecasts in order to make cheap energy decisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you could charge the battery overnight on cheap electricity and avoid having to purchase expensive electricity during the day,\u201d Platt says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a simple scenario but very difficult to realise.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing out from the pack<\/h3>\n

While there are numerous tech companies now focusing on the energy space, Platt says Evergen is the first to effectively combine weather forecasts with household consumption patterns.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are lots of people selling solar battery systems but nobody offering a really intelligently managed energy product for the homeowner,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not just another app and we\u2019re not just another piece of software to easily replicate \u2013 we\u2019ve done years of hardware development and there is really deep science behind this.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat gives us a very unique differentiator.\u201d<\/p>\n

The startup has been completing pilot programs in Australian households this year, and he says this has resulted in energy savings of up to 80%.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve surprised ourselves with how well it has worked,\u201d Platt says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did a lot of modelling and predictions for the benefits it would offer but when we deployed it in real houses it was giving even greater savings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Waiting for technology to catch up<\/h3>\n

The smart technology was developed internally in the CSIRO in 2010 but solar and battery technology has only just caught up, Platt says.<\/p>\n

\u201cCSIRO was working on this technology and deployed it back in 2010,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had developed a lot of algorithms and software with all the smarts in it but they had to use off the shelf batteries and solar hardware that was fairly clunky, expensive and big, and it\u2019s difficult to manage things like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had quite a lot of confidence around the benefits of the intelligent controlled approach but it has taken from then to now for battery hardware and solar systems to come to the point where it makes sense for people to add smart controls.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evergen\u2019s energy system has now officially launched and is on offer to the general public, with the company now turning its attention to scaling quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an open opportunity for people to participate in what we\u2019re calling the next phase of deployments,\u201d Platt says.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom here it\u2019s a question of scaling up. We want to do a couple of hundred deployments this year and then grow from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em>\u00a0Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sydney-based startup Evergen has raised $3.7 million as it takes \u201cAustralia\u2019s first intelligent home energy system\u201d to the market. Evergen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}