Electricity Maps calculates the carbon intensity of electricity consumption to optimize use at scale

If you’re an electrical nerd, chances are you’ve already spent quite a few hours looking at it Electricity cards and the mesmerizing export flow animations. This open-source data visualization project has been around since 2016. But companies like Google and Samsung are increasingly relying on this rich data set to achieve their sustainability goals and empower their own users.

Twenty people currently work at Electricity Cards and the company has been profitable for a few years. But JS has exclusively learned that it recently raised a $5.4 million (€5 million) funding round Transition And Revent, to take things a step further by investing in the product and the company. Electricity Maps is now both a data visualization tool and an enterprise API for data-driven decarbonization – and one wouldn’t work without the other.

Electricity Maps was founded by Olivier Corradi, a French and Danish entrepreneur and data scientist who previously worked for voice assistant startup Snips. It started with a desire to learn more about the production and consumption of electricity. “There were articles in the press saying that Denmark was running on 100% renewable energy for a day. So I wondered if this was true and how long it lasted – how many hours per day,” Corradi told JS.

Electricity maps collect real-time data on electricity production in more than 50 countries around the world. Although the company uses open data sources, employees and community contributors had to build dozens of parsers to standardize this data.

Because renewable energy is dependent on weather conditions (particularly for wind and solar energy), the mix of energy sources is constantly evolving. It means that the carbon intensity of the energy produced also changes with the time of day and current conditions. And, as you may have guessed, the CO2 emissions associated with the electricity you use can vary widely, because electricity is a bit like tap water flowing through a vast network of pipes.

Calculating CO2 emissions can be complicated because there are also many cross-border electricity flows: some countries produce more electricity than they actually consume, while other countries have a greater electricity demand than their production capacity. Electricity Maps has designed a proprietary flow-tracing model to understand which power plant is contributing to the electricity you currently consume.

“We’re going to work all of this into our system with what we call a flow-tracing algorithm, which allows us to tell you where the electricity is coming from depending on where you are. It can be produced locally, but it can also come from Germany. But Germany imports from Poland, so it could potentially come from Poland, etc. So we need to do some modeling,” Corradi said.

The company also stores historical data and uses machine learning algorithms to make 24-hour forecasts. Just as weather APIs are now a major industry, electricity forecasting APIs could become essential business tools in the future.

Electricity Maps founder and CEO Olivier Corradi (Image credits: Electricity cards)

From carbon intensity to load shifting

The reason why the open-source data visualization project is an essential part of the company is because Electricity Maps wants to achieve as much consensus as possible. Peer-reviewed studies are needed to calculate life cycle emissions for electricity generation.

The company shares all its sources for emission factors. It also means that these calculation methods may evolve over time as researchers publish new studies with more accurate results. The community can discuss and submit potential changes that will be reflected in the Electricity Maps data.

As for the commercial part, being able to know the carbon intensity of the electricity available in a specific place and at a specific time can be a kind of superpower.

“With all the renewable energy installation targets, we will be in a world where the amount of intermittent renewable energy will triple by 2030,” Corradi said.

“The great thing is that this demand is flexible, because they will be electric cars and you can adjust the time at which they charge. It will be an AI training and you can choose the time when you will train these large models,” he added.

Image credits: Electricity cards

Google, one of Electricity Maps’ main customers, partnered with the European startup to calculate the carbon intensity of the electricity that powers its data centers.

For some tasks, such as indexing the internet or training a new AI model, Google can use Electricity Maps data for load shifting. When there is more wind, it is time to start up additional servers. Or if it’s nighttime in the US, Google can move some compute-intensive operations to European data centers.

But Google’s own customers will also benefit from the company’s partnership with Electricity Maps. With the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, many companies will soon have to publish carbon accounting reports. Because many companies rely on Google Cloud for their hosting needs, they need data to calculate their scope 3 emissions. Thanks to Electricity Maps’ historical data, that carbon data will be more accurate.

Samsung, another customer for Electricity Maps, uses the startup’s data to show users the electricity consumption and carbon footprint of their Samsung devices. In that case, it’s more about educating users.

But Electricity Maps are much more than an educational tool. It can act as the information layer that decides whether it’s a good time to switch on millions of electrical appliances – or at least whether it’s a good time to have as little impact on the planet as possible.

Why does a profitable company increase? The funding injection is intended to increase Electricity Maps’ own impact by pivoting to gas so it can meet rising demand for smarter climate tools, Corradi said. “The reason we put forward is simply that the amount of renewable energy that is now in the system is starting to become so great that you are starting to have the opportunity to activate the flexibility of the devices that you have at home or in the industrial sector . ”