Digital twin and engineering simulation software company Akselos has closed a $16.5mn funding round, with participation from AT Capital Group, Future Energy Ventures, Japan Energy Fund and Shell Ventures.
With the latest investment round, Akselos will acquire an investor base to support the company’s ongoing global growth, enabling it to scale both its team and solutions to optimise the energy industry’s existing infrastructure and accelerate large scale deployment of renewable energy.
This is a crucial step toward the company’s aim of providing technology to enable the energy transition in line with Akselos’ commitment to the IEA Net Zero 2050 roadmap.
Akselos’ solution – which it claims is 1,000x faster and 10x more accurate than the industry standard when modelling large scale assets – simulates exact virtual replicas, or predictive and accurate digital twins, of energy assets such as offshore wind turbine and their foundations.
Thomas Leurent, CEO at Akselos, said it has enabled a new innovation curve for the energy industry.
"Each time we apply our MIT-licensed technology to a new type of asset with our customers and partners, we’re delivering industry firsts that will shape the future," he said.
"It’s more important than ever to protect and extend the life of our current infrastructure while redeploying capital toward the ambitious Net Zero 2050 roadmap. The team at Akselos is incredibly driven and is fully focused on scale, pace and precision. Adoption of our technology allows customers to lead in their respective fields, and we are eager to broaden the applications and usage.”
Today the company has deployed its software to over 40 customers worldwide. Employing more than 90 staff globally, Akselos is a leader in energy infrastructure innovation and operational excellence.
Akselos’ customers use its physics-based digital twin software, Akselos Integra & Akselos Innovate, to protect their most critical assets, learn from the digital twins and design the next generation of assets.
SP Energy Networks and Digital Catapult to create digital twin of UK electricity network
SP Energy Networks and Digital Catapult, in a consortium with University of Strathclyde and National Grid ESO, recently received funding from Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund to explore how an innovative, open and interoperable digital twin of the UK’s electricity transmission and distribution networks can aid decision making when managing and balancing energy resources and assets.
The project will also help to improve understanding of the potential role of advanced digital technologies in achieving the UK’s net zero targets.
The discovery project will determine the “art of the possible” based on currently available technologies, as well as outlining the use case and minimum viable product for a digital twin of the electricity transmission and distribution networks.
Niko Louvranos, Senior Energy and Utilities Practice Lead at Digital Catapult, said with the growth in electrification of heat and transport, and associate growth in EV, solar and battery energy storage, we need to have better visibility of the potential impact and efficacy these assets might have when balancing the National Electricity Transmission System, and develop systems and processes to manage them.
"This project is all about understanding how digital twins can support visualising, understanding, and evolving a system as complex as the UK's electricity networks to respond and adapt in real time."
