ABB has announced investments in Ndustrial, a US-based clean technology company. Accordingly, the startup has developed a leading-edge, AI-powered energy management platform.

This innovative technology enables smarter, production-aware energy decisions in real-time. Thus, helping customers reduce operating costs, optimize energy consumption, and accelerate decarbonization.

Propels Energy Management

The transaction follows ABB taking a minority stake in GridBeyond in April 2024. Specifically, the start-up is also providing energy management solutions based on AI and data science. This also enables customers to optimize distributed energy resources and industrial loads.

Ndustrial helps companies measure and reduce their energy intensity – the energy required for a pre-defined unit of output or activity. The system integrates multiple, and often disparate, data sources such as weather, market rates, equipment performance, industrial process outputs, and more. Thus, 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 addition, Thompson said,“Through our Advisory Services we are building an ecosystem of innovative, nimble partners to co-develop advancements in digital solutions. (This) complements 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.”

Complementary Vision

Ndustrial has been twice named as one of the World’s Top 100 Energy & Climate Tech startups by Start Up Energy Transition (powered by the German Energy Agency in cooperation with the World Energy Council). Thus, Ndustrial’s vision complements ABB’s drive to enable the energy transformation and decarbonization of industry. The company has around 40 employees.

Ndustrial’s Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer John Crawford said: “In a world preoccupied with AI that often delivers nebulous benefits, Ndustrial stands out for our decade of experience quantifying impressive payoffs from machine learning optimizations. 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 percent reduction in both energy costs and energy intensity, over seven years. This is equivalent to powering 250,000 homes annually. 

Mads Moeller, Head of ABB Electrification Ventures, said, “Ndustrial’s track record, technology platform and experienced team make them stand out. Our investment reflects ABB’s commitment to innovative companies driving industrial electrification and energy savings for customers.”
15 May 2024