Jürgen Mayerhofer is CEO and co-founder of enspired, a company enabling small-scale power producers to bring their assets onto power spot markets by using artificial intelligence (AI) trading services. Jürgen is a trained software engineer, has an MBA in Energy Management and received a Stanford LEAD Certificate on Corporate Innovation.
Tell us more about your company enspired
The basic idea for founding enspired formed over the last years, stemming from the demand for flexibility in power grids to avoid blackouts. This issue popped up in my previous career when I supported primarily large utilities with trading software for the European wholesale electricity market. With the substantial growth of renewable energy and the need to integrate fluctuating sources into the power grid, the topic of flexibility became more and more important, and everyone talked about implementing batteries, demand side-management and grid-stabilising activities. From my point of view, there is plenty of flexibility available, but it is not utilised yet. There are still considerable barriers to provide this flexibility – on organisational as well as on the technological side.
We offer a service that eliminates these barriers and supports companies without intraday market access (e.g. owners of short-term storage, combined heat and power (CHP) plants, e-mobility fleets) to commercially optimise their power portfolio’s flexibility. Our platform utilises AI, including self-learning models and automatically optimises portfolios within milli-seconds enabling trading of fluctuating and flexible assets, thus creating new income opportunities for asset owners. The aim is to be as transparent as possible and provide clients with all details on trading activities for their assets, e.g. with real-time dashboards.
enspired was only founded in January 2020 but consists of a team comprising many years of experience in energy, financial markets, software engineering and data science. Clients have been trading 24/7 since July this year, and the trading activity has increased significantly over the last months.
How do you intend to leverage being a MI Champion?
The clean energy transition is a global challenge and requires international cooperation across geographies, cultures and industries to succeed. Being a MI Champion allows me to get in contact with decision-makers more easily and already helped fostering exchange with policymakers and research institutions. I have a strong focus on demonstrating the significance of leveraging technology and especially Artificial Intelligence to accelerate clean energy technologies.
Do you have any upcoming plans or announcements that you would like to share with the MI community?
We have successfully proven that the utilisation of Artificial Intelligence increases the value of our clients’ assets. As part of our growth strategy, we will offer our services in at least two new markets over the next months. We have ambitious plans to establish a global presence and position ourselves in a leading role for innovative technologies such as short-term storage and e-mobility.