SwitchDin Scores Prestigious International Award For Energy Tech

Australian energy management technology company SwitchDin has been announced the winner of a 2020 Start Up Energy Transition (SET) Award.

With the future of energy being increasingly decentralised, SwitchDin offers solutions for smart control of distributed energy resources (DERs) including solar power, battery systems and more. This is achieved in part through “Droplets” – devices that can be used as energy management and control systems either autonomously or in coordination with other Droplets via Stormcloud, SwitchDin’s cloud-based management platform.

For such a small box of tricks, Droplets can do a lot – and SwitchDin’s solar and battery vendor-agnostic platform supports a bunch of manufacturers and integrators, with more being added on an ongoing basis. It’s been described as a “babel fish” of DER management in what is a fragmented market.

Solving The Challenge Of  High Solar Penetration

SwitchDin technology makes DERs once hidden “visible and controllable” and has applications for virtual power plants (VPPs), microgrids and just generally helping to integrate DERs into the grid; bridging the gap between traditional utilities, manufacturers and energy consumers (and prosumers in the case of solar owners).

But back to the award. Start Up Energy Transition (SET) supports energy innovation and its platform is powered by the German Energy Agency (dena) in cooperation with the World Energy Council. The platform aims to bridge the energy start-up ecosystem, support a network nurturing innovation and help to accelerate a clean energy transition.

The Start Up Energy Transition Award is a competition for start-ups and young companies from across the globe. This year’s SET Awards saw 570 entrants from 90 countries and SwitchDin taking out the Digital Energy Systems category.

“We are absolutely proud to have been named as a winner in the 2020 Start Up Energy Transition competition,” said SwitchDin CEO Dr Andrew Mears. “This award validates the capabilities of the SwitchDin platform and we will leverage our new credentials to accelerate our expansion into Europe and North America.”

The company has also enjoyed significant success here at home. Earlier this month, SwitchDin was announced a technology provider in an ARENA supported SA Power Networks led trial of flexible connection technology enabling solar power systems to automatically adjust export limits based on network conditions.

Among its other integration projects, last year the company was selected by Horizon Power  to provide Droplet controllers to enable high levels of small-scale solar and batteries in Western Australia’s Onslow region.