Energy is about to go through a similar shift like computing did decades ago and nobody is talking about this except us at PowerLabs.
Computing was centralized and used by governments and scientists only. That was the status quo until the information era ushered in personal computing, with companies like Microsoft and Apple reinventing the UI and UX of computers, making them portable, affordable and accessible to everyone via personalized apps, devices and services. Computing was essentially disaggregated and distributed to everyone in the quantities they demand; at home, places of work and on-the-go, giving us control.
A similar shift is happening with energy today. Energy has long been centralized and controlled by governments and utilities. However, with everything today from consumer devices and AI-native applications to data centers and mobility devices requiring an incomprehensible amount of electricity, energy consumers have become their own utilities and the grid is just one of the many power sources they have at their disposal.
We are in the energy era.
At PowerLabs, we are ushering in energy's “personal computer moment”. Yes, there are distributed energy resources (from generators, solar, batteries etc) but they don't talk to each other. They are built in siloes (different infrastructures), speak different languages, and are designed to be standardized/rigid in their functionality. We believe distributed energy does not have to mean chaos, siloes and inflexibility.
PowerLabs is building the layer that transforms these diverse energy systems into a coordinated, intelligent ecosystem. We are designing and building energy consumer devices, applications and services that enable hybrid energy sources (solar, batteries, generators, grid) to work in harmony to deliver maximum uptime at the lowest possible cost with minimal impact to the environment.
Our solutions will ensure that distributed energy resources can operate as one unified source, while leveraging its disaggregation to offer flexibility, cost efficiency, carbon neutrality and redundancy for energy consumers, more than a centralised energy system ever could.
In essence, we will build the infrastructure (bridges, roads, rails), design the common language, and develop a value-exchange system that will allow energy consumers’ ecosystem of distributed energy resources to be cost-efficient, reliable and value-creating.
To achieve this, we will start by building the user infrastructure (the Operating System) for the energy age via the Pai platform i.e. building and designing ...
- the Infrastructure/Hardware layer (sensors, controllers, edge devices);
- the Communication/Middleware layer (APIs, unified data models); and
- the Value exchange layer/ Intelligence layer (optimization, algorithms).
…. and we are building our vision starting in Lagos, Nigeria. Why?
Well, the challenges of the energy transition that global markets are facing today, Nigerians have experienced for years at the extreme level and understand them deeply. The US, UK and Europe are just beginning to solve these emerging reliability issues that come with a renewable future. These challenges include:
- Inability of the grid to meet demand. This has been the case in Nigeria for decades with 22M generators power households and MSMEs in Nigeria – the collective capacity of these generators is 8x the national grid at peak capacity.
- Decentralised energy as the default. Nigerians spend $10B annually buying, maintaining and fueling backup generators alone. In Africa, 65% of new solar installed capacity over the past 2 years has come from large enterprises contracting directly with developers. Globally, most solar PV is built by utilities.
- Rising retail energy prices. Nigerians have long dealt with high “estimated” utility bills. With the majority of the population off-grid, utilities now pass on their costs to their existing customers.
In essence, by building in Nigeria, we build ahead of the intelligent energy challenges the world faces.
Yes, we need more tarred roads, better transport networks and emergency response systems. But fixing all these is in service of one thing – productivity. Electricity is the most important indicator of a nation's productivity and economic competitiveness and in fact there is a direct correlation between electricity generation and productivity (prosperity) of a nation.
Beyond energy, the truth is no nation or continent can truly move from developing to developed, if they don't build deep expertise that moves the needle in science and technology. There is no nth number of fintech, food delivery or 'insert American replica company', can help us 'leapfrog' this fact.
The global energy crisis provides a once in a lifetime opportunity to invent and that is exactly what we do at PowerLabs. By doing this, we help reposition the Global South from a poster child of energy poverty to one of energy abundance.
The future of power is personal.