Innovation

Our venture capital and innovation arm, National Grid Partners, has invested almost half a billion dollars in dozens of startup companies since its launch in 2018. 

To drive innovation at the speed and scale that’s needed to deliver the clean energy transition, they invest in companies that are making the power grid safer, cleaner, and smarter, as well as developing numerous solutions in-house.  

As the only venture capital firm that’s built an alliance of over 120 global utilities, their team combines 100 years of investing experience and 125 years of utility operations.
 

Find out more about National Grid Partners

Working with startup companies

More than 80% of the startups in National Grid Partners’ portfolio are actively engaged with National Grid business units to help make our energy networks smarter, safer and greener. Just some examples of these companies include:  

Avathon

Avathon (formerly SparkCognition) uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help large enterprises protect their critical assets from downtime. Their collaboration with Grain LNG - the largest liquified natural gas terminal in Europe, and a critical part of the UK’s energy system - uses data analytics to predict when equipment at the terminal will need maintenance before problems arise.  
 

More about the Avathon and Grain LNG collaboration

Sensat

Sensat’s “digital twin” platform can dramatically reduce costs and completion timelines for large infrastructure projects. To date this has helped National Grid Electricity Transmission to upgrade a power station in Cheshire, connect a data centre in Oxfordshire to a new power cable and site a new substation in Lincolnshire, and enabled us to reduce customer impact from all three projects.  

More about Sensat’s digital twin software 

Exodigo

Exodigo combines advanced sensor data with artificial intelligence to “see” what’s buried underground, and is similar to running an MRI, CT scan and ultrasound simultaneously.

As part of a project to expand a substation in Rotterdam, New York, this startup’s technology discovered multiple buried pipes and cables so our design team could avoid striking obstacles during construction. Avoiding such delays enabled us to save customers money and reduce construction-related emissions.  

More about our work with Exodigo 

Case studies