Season 1

AI-Driven Load Optimization & Energy Communities with Philipp Steiner | Intersolar 2025

with Philipp Steiner· Want Analytics· 20m

TL;DR

AI optimizes energy load and community management.

Synopsis

Philipp Steiner, CEO of Want Analytics, discusses the company's AI-driven energy management solutions at Intersolar 2025. The conversation covers load optimization, energy communities, and the integration of flexible tariffs and market communication for enhanced efficiency.

Key metrics

by the numbers · 5

1,000
Households and businesses
4 measurements/second
Smart meter frequency
90%
Supported component manufacturers
30%
Electricity cost savings with PV
70-80%
Cost savings with full system

Topics

5 tags

AI optimizationEnergy communitiesLoad managementEnergy efficiencySoftware integration

Stats

Duration: 19m
Words: 2.5k
Questions: 9

Timeline

10 chapters

Introduction
Introduction to the podcast and guest Philipp Steiner.
Company Overview
Philipp Steiner introduces Want Analytics and its core product.
Energy Management Differentiation
Discussion on how Want Analytics differentiates from other energy management systems.
Origins and Device Recognition
Philipp explains the origins of Want Analytics and its initial focus on device recognition.
Load Management Focus
Shift towards load management and the formation of a dedicated scrum team.
Integration with OEMs
Integration with OEMs and the importance of TCP/IP for communication.
Energy Communities
The role of energy communities in optimizing energy use across locations.
Austria's Energy Shift
Discussion on Austria's energy consumption and the shift towards electricity.
Cost Savings with Energy Systems
Potential cost savings with different energy system configurations.
Collaboration Challenges
Challenges in collaborating with manufacturers and the benefits of a local approach.

Key insights

5 takeaways

01
Holistic energy management is key
A core system that integrates OEM independence, load management, and monitoring features is crucial for effective energy management.
02
Local approach benefits manufacturers
Communicating directly with local components reduces server costs for manufacturers, making them more open to collaboration.
03
Energy communities optimize resources
Energy communities allow for efficient resource sharing between locations, enhancing overall energy management.
04
Significant cost savings achievable
Integrating PV systems, batteries, and energy management can lead to 70-80% cost savings.
05
Europe's niche is in software
European companies have a competitive edge in software due to their understanding of local electricity markets and use cases.

Pull quotes

2 quotes

With a PV system you can save around 30% of electricity costs.
Philipp Steiner
You can save to 70 to 80%.
Philipp Steiner

Transcript395 cuesClick a timestamp to jump

Here
we are. Welcome back to the energy
bridge here in Inter Solar 2025. The
third day. yesterday it was busy. We
didn't record too many interviews but
the one that we made it was very
interesting with Luke who batteries and
today we have the pleasure to have what
analytics and the CEO here it's a
startup from Vienna so
it's exciting
>> Philip glad to have you here
introduce yourselves and at what
analytics
>> yeah as my name is Philip I'm the CEO
and partner of Want reason
we are a energy management software
company startup from Vienna as you
mentioned right now we are 15 people
right now we are somewhere between the
startup and scaleup phase right now so
we have the core product ready we have
also our first partners we have already
implemented our systems in over 1, 000
households and small businesses
and what we are doing is that we
provide energy management software
core and for each partner we are
developing for their specific use
cases
features and bring with this
approach more and more features use
cases competences knowledges into
this platform and yeah so the main
goal is to have the best software in
place for energy management as possible.
>> When we talk about energy management,
what exactly is that what analytics
is doing that is different from other
energy management solution?
>> Yeah, actually there are a lot of
energy management systems right
now in the field. we also spent
the whole Wednesday so the first day at
the interolar checking all our
competitors
and if you're visiting the interolar for
a few years now you see each year there
are new software energy management
companies here the thing
is that they all have one use case so
you have a lot of startups for the
home energy market. Yeah. So they have
a online only approach. Then you
have the old big companies let's say
they are more into the industrial field.
so there are have their specific
niches but there is no holistic
energy management with a core system
which has all the OEM independency
feature all the load management
feature and also all the monitoring
features and this is what we are doing.
We created this whole core software
and with this core as our basis we can
then easily go into the specific
niches and markets where our partners
are operating at. And I would say this
is actually the big advantage
and our big USB that we are not focusing
on one specific use case but also
providing a solid core function and
then with our fantastic developing
team over 10 developers we have in right
now go into the specific use cases
and features for our partners
>> and one of the phone that I read on
about you that you started with energy
efficiency the as a as a system. Could
you elaborate on that? How how it all
started?
>> Yeah. Yeah. This was actually the
legacy of Fatanoric. So it all
started with the device recognition.
So back in 2018 there was the idea to
bring energy efficiency into the
households
by installing an smart meter at
the
electricity booth to measure on the
three phases the electricity flow very
in a high frequenc
with four measurements per second
per phase. Wow. So 12 12
measure points per second and then based
on their load curve and on specific
other patterns we could detect
single consumers clothes for example
coffee machine the lights or and so on
and then to display them into the in our
app and or also in on our website and
then to give the customer a overview
about how is the usage of his
electricity with installing only one
measurement system and to do the rest
with AI software. So this was actually
the first use case we did and this is
something which is also a USP of us and
which we are focusing right now
also in a very big funding project
with the Austrian Institute of
Technology to bring more logic into this
AI algorithm. But what we're
facing also at the same time is that
load management
>> is actually the I would say the even
more important phase. So that's why
we managed or actually created our
second scrum team focusing on load
management as well.
>> Yeah. Yeah. This is something that we
have seen in many exhibitions that is
getting more and more important demand
respond like not only it's a smarter
way and more efficient way to use the
existent infrastructure but
like shift shifting the load it's
u it's very important now in the demand
side so what you are doing now is with
AI also and how how do you manage
the equipment? How do you switch them
on or off? How do you program them
programming them?
>> Yeah, that's a really tough
thing because what we did actually.
Yeah. So we had our our smart meter for
the device recognition with the with the
four point second measurement
and then we added a
computer
>> into the same component.
and with local modus DCP IP we
actually developed
all the interfaces to the OEMs we
are supporting right now I would say 90%
of all component manufacturers and
each year there are new component
manufacturers yeah component need to be
IoT enabled or
>> yeah of course yeah so actually what
TCP IP is something they need to
have in their system because otherwise
it's not really possible to give
comments or to get the data from it. I
mean there are some other workarounds
you can do. but it is actually
very common for all the OEMs to
integrate the open mod TCP protocol so
that energy management software
companies can use their their
interfaces
and then you have actually all the or
actually I would say the whole energy
infrastructure of a household or a
business on one platform and what
you were actually talking about. Then
you have some different I would say
requirements of how do you load or
actually enable all the
batteries, wall boxes and all the
flexible loads. And this is of course
the production from your own
PV system. But you have also which is
also u very very popular at the
moment flexible
energy tariffs
>> with market. So you are also making
>> so you actually communicate
with the spot market.
>>. And what is also actually in
Austria very very big
marked is energy communities.
Yeah.
>> So it is very important for I would
say big companies with different
locations. on one location they have a
big PV system on the on the other
location
they don't have they have only a battery
let's say and then it's very important
that the two different locations
communicate with each other so that the
battery and the location B knows when
there is over production in the location
A to take all the
>> the energy from the location A and to
to load the battery. And what we
are also
also focusing right now which will
be also very important beginning of next
year is that the electricity
infrastructure will also have some
different prices.
>> Yeah.
>> And this is also something you need to
to integrate in your software. So
you have your own production, you have
the spot market, you have the different
prices from from the from the
electricity infrastructure,
you have the different OEMs, you have
different locations and you need one
software to manage all this thing.
That's a pretty hard work. Yeah.
>> Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Challenge. Big
challenge. Good.
>> And one of the thing that it that
everyone want to understand is about the
numbers in terms of energy
efficiency. People always talk about
that is it's a bit far ahead to talk
about energy efficiency right now is
let's talk about the scale let's talk
about deployment it will come later if
you can explain a bit more about the
cost saving that you buy why it gets
more important solution like you right
now
>> yeah
let's start it that way in
Australia 20% % of the whole
energy
consumption
only 20% is electric electricity the
rest is
>> heating
>> heating and also mobility yeah
>> and Austria don't have gas
and that we don't have oil
so we need to shift as much as possible
people into the electricity because
Austria we have the big water
productions we have also in east
Austria wind and we have also solar
so actually we have a very good mix yeah
but we need to bring all the other
consumers into the electricity market
let's say
>> electric
>> yeah everything every every part yeah
but not everything of course So you will
not be able to bring the big
steel manufacturers to
electricity. So that's not possible.
>> That's what your test is about, right?
To how to electrify the
>> industry. But there are limits.
>> Yeah. Good. Good luck. Yeah. Good luck.
but you can you can you
can bring this 20% electricity to 80%
electricity. So this this should be the
case. This should be the case.
Yeah. And the last 20% will be gas and
will it be oil. So the big industry
the steel first in lint and then on the
all the other steel manufacturers they
will have to take the gas and the
oil. So that's not possible to shift.
but then we have actually of course
a big need for energy efficiency
as you talked right now for
households and for small businesses.
We did some analysis with our existing
customers. they need to have heat
pumps and they need to have an
electrical car. That's important. But
then you can say with a PV system you
can save around 30% of electricity
costs.
>> Wow.
>> A PV system with a battery you can save
around 50% costs.
and then a PV system with a battery and
with an energy management system which
integrates all these things we're
talking right now the spot market energy
communities and so on you can save to 70
to 80%. So that's actually the
thing. Yeah.
>> So storage system are crucial for this
energy transition that we're living in,
right? To have flexibility and the
option to manage energy
>> production all together. A PV system, a
storage system and a monitoring system
all going hand in hand is when you get
the most efficiency. with it going with
collaboration
>> because you need to talk to a lot of
batteries
>> manufacturers
>> manufacturers you need to talk to a lot
of PV developers so what are the
constraint that you feel when it come to
collaboration
>> for us it's very very easy because we
have this local approach what are the
the new hemps home energy management
startups are doing right now is that
they actually don't want to install a
hardware at the at the at the customer.
So they cannot use the local
interfaces of course obviously. So they
want to have a software only approach
where they connect to all the
online servers from the manufacturers
which then
leads to that the manufacturers have
higher server costs because an third
party software is calling the server
I don't know several times a minute.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's why
they u the manufacturers are not so
in love with all this hemps only
software. But if you come from a local
approach that you actually
communicate with the
with the local component of the
manufacturer then the manufacturers
does not have any more costs or or
something like that because you're not
using his server infrastructure
>> and therefore they are very open and
actually very happy to talk with us
because they think okay if our system
supports I don't know Solux or
something like that then this is a
big advantage for them to or
actually a big opportunity for
them to sell them to sell their
components to maybe existing customers
of us. I have a question more like in
the spirit of entrepreneurial spirit
because you we discussed before camera
that you see the market the all
manufacturers are going in China or
other places. So the role in Europe
could be to use better this
infrastructure or this equipment
making it software in intelligent
software how to manage better and in the
in this approach how do you see the
competence or the competition with other
countries which which are developing
softwares and you from Vienna to the
world. Yeah.
>>
yeah, as we discussed before, I
think
Asian markets u with all the new
software and components on a very very
good way. I think the niche for
Europe is software because we have we
know the use cases.
We know the electricity market in Europe
and that's why we have
actually the niche knowhow I would
say. So I think it would be a very good
fit. Maybe we have a talk with the CEO
of this booth. then that the
Asian companies are providing the
hardware they are very very good and
Europe with all the software knowledge
we have and also with the knowledge
about the European electricity market
we can provide the software and then I
would think this could be a very strong
partnership
>> yeah it's very visionary I share it
>> and when you talk about crossber
collaboration and mostly European
companies doing the software and the
company in Fleming from China. You do
you see the hardware company they
are open to integrating other software
within their system?
>> Yeah, I would say the they are more open
than the European manufacturers.
>> Wow.
>> Okay. That that's interesting.
>> That's good.
>> Yep.
>> It's good. So, thank you for being with
us today.

AI-Driven Load Optimization & Energy Communities with Philipp Steiner | Intersolar 2025

Holistic energy management is key

Local approach benefits manufacturers

Energy communities optimize resources

Significant cost savings achievable

Europe's niche is in software