ABB Invests in Developer of an AI-Powered Energy Management Platform

ABB recently announced a minority investment in Ndustrial, a US-based clean technology startup that has developed an AI-powered energy management platform. The platform enables smarter, production-aware energy decisions in real time, helping customers reduce operating costs, optimize energy consumption and accelerate decarbonization. The investment was made through ABB Ventures. Financial details were not disclosed.

The transaction follows ABB taking a minority stake in GridBeyond in April 2024, a start-up providing energy management solutions based on AI and data science that will enable customers to optimize distributed energy resources and industrial loads.

Ndustrial helps companies measure and reduce their energy intensity – the energy required for a predefined unit of output or activity. (see example of report above). By integrating multiple, and often disparate, data sources such as weather, market rates, equipment performance, industrial process outputs and more, companies can analyze, optimize and predict their energy usage and costs per unit of production. This enables real-time decisions, as well as actionable insights and automated control specific to the industry, facility or production line being optimized.

“Championing sustainability and guiding customers to achieve net zero carbon is at the core of what we do,” said Stuart Thompson, president, ABB Electrification Service, in the press release. “Through our Advisory Services we are building an ecosystem of innovative, nimble partners to co-develop advancements in digital solutions to complement our portfolio and enhance the availability, resilience, safety and sustainability of energy for customers. This partnership with Ndustrial means we can accelerate decarbonization for our customers by leveraging AI-powered predictions to make decisions in real-time so they can optimize production, save energy, and reduce costs and emissions.”

ABB said in the release that Ndustrial’s vision complements ABB’s drive to enable the energy transformation and decarbonization of industry. Ndustrial has approximately40 employees.

Ndustrial’s Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer John Crawford said in the press release, “Our team of industrial engineers and software developers have created a new kind of energy management system for industrial operations, and with ABB’s expertise and global reach, we’ll be able to make a real impact in accelerating the global energy transition. We are all extremely excited to see how far and how fast we can go.”

To date, Ndustrial has helped companies avoid over $100 million in energy costs over 10 years. Lineage, a global cold storage leader, saw a 30% reduction in both energy costs and energy intensity, over seven years, equivalent to powering 250,000 homes annually.