Best Startup
U Energy Ltd UK aims to create and be the licensed exporter of Global Hybrid Off-Grid Micro-Grid Energy Systems.
Our business will remain innovative as it will own the patented technology that is unique in the renewable energy industry. The development of the Hybrid Off-Grid Micro-Grid Energy Systems will be the first of its kind and will not be replicated due to its protection.
The technology is unique because it uses Controllable, Sensing and Measurement IoT, and AC and DC circuit breakers.
It also has an Artificial Intelligence Energy Management System built in to optimize the generation to load journey. When the customer imports/exports energy from/to the EV, the AI will immediately adjust the micro grid behavior to ensure 2 days autonomy, using the circuit breakers to inform the AI of the load conditions.
We are a company based on non discrimination and equality for all humans on planet earth. No matter your race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or status in life, we believe all people deserve access to energy, the master resource.
Tell us about yourself?
I have been in the energy and utility industries, for over 20 years. I founded U Systems & U Tech Dynamics in South Africa over 20 years ago, and still at the helm to this day.
I am the inventor and sole founder of U Energy Ltd UK, and own the patent rights for the next 20 years.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Now realizing the technology invention is years ahead of time, with most technologies in this space now attracting innovative financing deals in an attempt to attract customers and create markets, …as opposed to technology innovation solutions to create natural scalability, ….the advice now to myself 2 years ago, and even 8 months ago, …is “more patience”, allowing the market to saturate with non-scalable solutions while the power grid become unstable and the green transition premium erode household disposable income with hyperinflation, …in turn establishing our business case and technology, …that will allow network effects to drive our global scalability, ….with a minimal marketing budget.
Requiring half of solar panels and batteries to go completely off grid, we also reduce the supply chain vulnerability while EV DC by-directional establishes our DC end-of-grid new wiring code (one of the various inventions in the ecosystem invention PCT patent), hence a second piece of advice, …”broader thinking”.
What problem does your business solve?
The current energy crises around the world as our solution is scalable, globally.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
The realization at the 2018 European Utility Week that the world is heading for price inflation caused by the narrow view of unpredictable new green technology solutions, hence the need for new technology that would fix the grid, from the end of the grid.
Decades of exposure in utilities management industry and years at the AMEU (Association for Municipal Electricity Utilities) and SAPOA (South Africa Property Owners Association), experiencing the energy transition and how utilities and property owners grapple for solutions, then deploying solutions that cause grid instability, attracting other technology to address the instability, then smart metering technology, ….all inflating operating cost and energy pricing inflation.
Removing residential load from the power grid forever (affordable and scalable) significantly reducing morning and evening peak loads, softening the duck-effect on the power grid, promote grid stability, reduce price inflation, remove metering and billing, accelerate EV charging stations in residential areas, creating a new green economy with millions of jobs worldwide, restore household disposable income, reignite retail trade, significantly improve electrification and access to the master resource (Energy), affording micro economies to establish, and in the long haul eradicate poverty and starvation globally.
I am in the energy and utilities industries for over 20 years, and the CEO of a South African company U Tech Dynamix who provides utilities management services and measure and manage PV & Storage integrated systems at commercial properties. This coupled with over 20 years’ experience in the energy sector, proves my suitability to launch the U Energy business in the UK and thereafter globally.
Before coming up with the invention, I saw that there was a desperate need for an innovative solution, something that took people completely off-grid, with no monthly bills or metering, at a minimal cost and something that could be scalable, globally. A solution that would see humanitarians and philanthropy organizations invest in for all people on planet earth, to be able to enjoy energy in their homes, businesses, and farms, schools and clinics.
When energy is provided, many opportunities become available, such as data for education, small businesses start to arise, access to disposal income in homes, opportunities that would otherwise not be there, without the master resource. U Energy will provide access to energy, which will ensure people have the ability to sustain themselves and their families, and no person will ever be destitute or poor again.
What is your magic sauce?
Newly invented and PCT patented sensing, measurement and controllable circuit breakers, AC and DC, …with AC and DC coexistence, …with alternative storage in addition to batteries, ….reducing distribution losses, …with an Artificial Intelligence Energy Management System that balances generation and demand, …ensuring minimum 2 day autonomy in the case of zero generation, ….with the solution agnostic to generation innovation and a mixture of PV, wind, hydro (other) generation input sources, shedding excess generation load to pumped storage, extended hot water, pools, HVAC and more.
This will be a new global standard along with new house wiring rules, completely off-grid, with no metering and billing, and energy transfer through EVs (DC preferred) and a new mobile energy storage transfer industry that supplies energy to temporary strained applications, ….like you would supply diesel to generators and/or gas to turbines.
The “magic sauce” is a combination of magic sauces, …being the multiple of inventions in the ecosystem PCT patent.
Our unique competitor advantages are: zero grid ties and full autonomy, asset finance repayment is less than the cost of electricity, a significant improvement of existing technologies, we use less panels, batteries and inverters, no monthly utility accounts or payments and patented new technology and method that’s been invented, there is no one like us in the market!
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
102,400 installations by 2027, with 1,080,000 installations by 2032, expanding to 168million installations by 2050, reducing +800million tons of CO2 annually, creating +4million new jobs.
What is our vision? We will be actively working on securing investment for Phase 2, the Build & ready to commercialize, & National & Regional patent lodging. In 2023 we will go to market in UK and SA.
We have a 20 year vision for U Energy Ltd UK, where we will be commercialized globally, every home, every country will have the U Energy system built into it, even rural areas, where previously they could not access electricity, this will be changed by us, every person will have 1 plate of food a day, and will never go hungry again.
The company will deploy their systems in the UK first. This will involve Manufacturing & Assembly, secure AI driven EMS manufacturing, the IoT circuit breaker manufacturing, the establishment of certified Micro Enterprises for installation and commissioning supply chains and meet local content requirements
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
On a personal front :- recovering from corporate foul play between 2012 and 2018 that completely destroyed my business and life, ..rebuilding in 3 years while being a society outcast and in isolation.
U Energy:- using debt, while re-establishing the SA business, to develop the U Energy invention from a napkin (Café Le’Europe in Vienna, Austria) to drawings, designs, specifications, bill-of material, business case, provisional patent in South Africa in July 2020, final PCT patent publish with the WIPO in January 2022.
Changing course from South Africa to the UK was when most interested investors sighted South Africa as non-investment grade with political instability.
What issues have I run into? Everything, including access to working capital to sustain the SA business continuity and growth, and having to stay in a room at a wedding venue and in guest houses to ensure access to cash to progresses with the U Energy invention.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
Collaboration:- Investors, Funders, Sponsors, and order book commitment, in all aspects, being U Energy (IP) holder, U Micro Grid (go to market), U Money (asset finance), U Products (supply chain), and U Data (connectivity).
We will be actively reaching out to current interested investors – we also have interest from Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) a company started by Bill Gates.
We have databases of humanitarian, philanthropic and residential developers, whom we plan on meeting with when I am officially in London (after 28th July 2022).
