Fluence, a Siemens and AES company, announced that it has acquired the digital intelligence platform of AMS, the leading provider of AI-enabled optimized bidding software for utility-scale storage and generation assets.
The combination of the two companies’ technologies will help utilities, developers, and commercial and industrial customers optimize energy storage and flexible assets to deliver additional revenue, improve grid reliability and efficiency, and support the global transition to more sustainable and resilient power systems.
AMS’ technology uses artificial intelligence, advanced price forecasting, portfolio optimization and market bidding to ensure energy storage and flexible generation assets are responding optimally to price signals sent by the market. AMS’ and Fluence’s technologies together will act as a force multiplier, maximizing asset value by combining Fluence’s deep experience operating batteries in the field with AMS’ ability to optimize market participation.
The acquisition, which follows a year-long partnership between the two companies, complements and expands upon Fluence’s digital intelligence capabilities, such as market dispatch algorithms, battery degradation modeling and anomaly detection.
By joining the Fluence team, AMS will leverage Fluence’s global sales reach to make its software available to more customers around the world.
“Our century-old power system is stressed. Renewable energy and energy storage are the solution,” said Brett Galura, chief technology officer at Fluence (in picture). “AMS has developed one of the most powerful AI-enabled software engines available in the industry. This acquisition provides customers with data-driven insights that maximize the value and performance of generation and storage assets to make the entire grid smarter. These innovations will drive the transformation of global electric power systems to ensure a more sustainable future.”
The acquisition allows Fluence to increase the value of energy storage and renewable energy for customers.
The combination of Fluence’s sixth generation tech stack, which can reduce balance of system costs for energy storage by up to 25 percent, with AI-enabled software that can increase revenue from battery energy storage by more than 100 percent, maximizes the ROI of energy storage. AMS’ software has also increased the revenues of standalone renewable assets by over 10 percent via optimized wholesale market bidding.
Fluence takes a technology-agnostic “app store” approach to integrating the world’s best digital applications – both its own and third parties’ – to optimize energy storage and flexible generation assets. This philosophy extends to AMS’ optimized bidding software, which will be available as a standalone application for owners of energy storage, hybrid and standalone generation assets. Asset owners will be able to use the software to optimize their systems regardless of whether they use Fluence technology. The market bidding software is currently available in the U.S. in the California ISO (CAISO) and in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM), where it optimizes over 15 per cent of Australia’s wind and solar resources, with plans to expand to additional markets in the near future.
Together, AMS and Fluence cover nearly 5 GW of existing or awarded assets around the world.
“We are incredibly excited to join the team at Fluence. Customers are building larger fleets of energy storage and flexible generation assets, while at the same time wholesale markets are becoming more complex and volatile,” said Seyed Madaeni, chief executive officer at AMS. “We have a unique opportunity to lead the clean energy revolution by using AI to optimize the dispatch of flexible assets, maximize their value and make the entire electric power system more responsive, reliable and resilient. As part of the Fluence team, we will have the capabilities and resources to accelerate the global expansion of our software.”
Fluence’s integrated hardware, software and digital intelligence has powered more than 7.6 million MW-hr of delivered energy storage service to date. Together, AMS and Fluence cover nearly 5 GW of existing or awarded assets around the world. AMS is currently bidding 1.7 GW of assets, with a further 0.7 GW under contract, in Australia and California. Fluence has deployed or been awarded 2.4 GW of energy storage projects in 22 countries and territories.
Source: Press release from Fluence
Featured photograph shows the “Fluence Tech Stack” that combines hardware, controls, software, and intelligence into an integrated foundation for safe, repeatable and customized energy storage systems.
