EIB Provides Reactive Technologies with 19 Million Euros for Power Grid Technology

The British-Finnish deep tech company Reactive Technologies is receiving 19 million euros in venture debt from the European Investment Bank (EIB). The company plans to use the funding to further develop its technology for real-time monitoring of power grids and to expand its rollout within the European Union. Up to 7 million euros will go toward research and development at the company’s Oulu, Finland, location, while an additional 12 million euros are earmarked for deploying the technology across the EU. The financing is supported by the InvestEU program and is part of the EIB Group’s TechEU initiative.

Power grids are becoming more complex

Reactive Technologies’ technology addresses a growing challenge of the energy transition. Power grids must not only accommodate growing amounts of electricity from wind and solar plants but also supply new large consumers, such as data centers, at the same time.

Unlike conventional power plants, however, many renewable generation facilities do not contribute the same level of rotating mass—and thus inertia—to the power grid. This so-called inertia can help absorb short-term fluctuations and disturbances in the grid.

The more the electricity mix changes, the more important it becomes for grid operators to monitor the actual state of their grids as accurately as possible and in real time.

GridVerix Measures Grid Stability in Real Time

Reactive Technologies has developed its GridVerix platform for this purpose. It measures key parameters of grid stability in real time. In addition to the grid’s inertia, these include grid strength and voltage stability in various parts of the system. This is intended to enable grid operators to identify vulnerabilities earlier and manage their infrastructure more efficiently. Among other things, this should make it possible to connect additional wind and solar capacity as well as large electricity consumers without unnecessarily jeopardizing grid stability.

Reactive Technologies also sees potential for reducing so-called curtailment. This involves intentionally limiting the electricity production of renewable energy plants when the grid is temporarily unable to safely absorb the generated energy. A better understanding of the actual grid status could enable grid operators to utilize existing capacities more efficiently.

Seven Million Euros for Research in Finland

Up to seven million euros of the EIB financing is earmarked for research and development activities in Oulu, Finland, where Reactive Technologies operates its R&D center. An additional twelve million euros is intended to support the rollout of GridVerix within the European Union.

The 19 million euros is not an equity round but rather venture debt. This form of financing is aimed specifically at innovative growth companies and provides additional capital without the need to immediately issue new shares. The transaction is supported by InvestEU. In addition, the financing contributes to TechEU, through which the EIB Group aims to accelerate investments in strategically relevant European technologies.

Technology from Europe is to be rolled out more widely

Reactive Technologies was co-founded in the United Kingdom and Finland and is now headquartered in London. In addition to its development center in Finland, the company has commercial offices in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia. Its business model is based on a “data-as-a-service” approach. Through GridVerix, grid operators, energy suppliers, and plant operators receive measurement data and analyses regarding the stability of their power grids.

For CEO Marc Borrett, the funding comes at a time when both the feed-in of renewable energy and the electricity demand of large consumers are growing rapidly. Both factors increase the complexity for grid operators.

The energy transition requires more than just new generation capacity

The funding for Reactive Technologies thus also demonstrates that the energy transition is increasingly becoming an infrastructure and software challenge. New wind and solar facilities alone are not enough if power grids cannot reliably integrate the additional and fluctuating generation.

For Reactive Technologies, the opportunity lies in making existing grid infrastructure more efficient through better real-time data. However, whether GridVerix can actually prevent grid expansion on a large scale, reduce curtailment, or integrate additional consumers more quickly will only become clear once it is deployed more widely.