When Devashish Paul founded BluWave-ai in 2017, the Kanata North software developer knew he wanted to help make Earth a greener planet. The effects of doing nothing, the CEO said, would be catastrophic.
“What’s been happening is companies have traditionally been able to generate more product and more revenue by burning as much carbon as they want. But now we are seeing the effects of polluting the planet over the last couple hundred years,” Paul said. “We have seen forest fires and floods, leading to entire communities being wiped out. Think of the deer in the woods or elephants in the jungle that are all suffering because of human consumption. They don’t have a say in what happens. If we don’t do anything the next generations will suffer.”
It’s a small part that’s making a world of difference. The work of BluWave-ai is nothing short of incredible. It uses cloud-based software to predict and optimize how energy is used in grid and transportation networks.
While based out of the Kanata North Technology Park, the company deals with clients in Japan, Dubai Europe, and the United States.
“If you can’t predict how much you get from wind and solar, you burn more from coal and gas. Once you do that you’re committed to burning more. The goal is to predict what you’re getting and when to burn less,” said Paul. “Sometimes you can store it in batteries and electric vehicles, then use it later.”
Over the past seven years, BluWave-ai has been building one the world’s premier transport electrification and renewable energy, focusing on driving the proliferation of renewable energy and electric transportation worldwide with SaaS based AI solutions. Most of its customers are fleet operators, corporations, and utility companies.
Electrifying school bus fleets
In early April, BluWave-ai announced results of a project for how Canadian school bus operators can achieve 95 per cent fleet electrification using AI-driven optimization.
According to a press release, the school bus operator has between 500 to 1,000 school buses at multiple regional facilities in Canada, and plans to convert its fleet to zero-emission buses by 2040, with a goal to phase close to 300 battery electric school buses into service by 2026. Engineering and project management services are being provided by Envari, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hydro Ottawa.
While the improvements will be good for the environment, they are also aimed at reducing operating costs. When buses are parked when they aren’t picking up passengers, bidirectional chargers (V2G) can be used to store and release energy.
Investment from PowerON Energy Solutions
In February 2023, BluWave-ai announced it completed a $9.5 million Series A financing round for PowerON Energy Solutions — a subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation — who made a strategic investment. It took a minority stake along with existing and new private investors led by Capital Angel Network.
The Investment to Expand EV Fleet and EV Everywhere Business Units used resources to build on the company’s Grid Optimization solution with the EV Fleet Orchestrator product line for EV Fleet operators, and the EV Everywhere product line for utilities dealing with the onslaught of personal EVs and electricity grid congestion and upgrade challenges.
Previous lead customers for its EV Fleet orchestrator product included: Dubai Taxi, other fleet operators, and PowerON. The EV Everywhere solution’s lead customers are Hydro Ottawa and IESO.
The use of proceeds from the round were for commercial scale-out, new customer acquisition, growth of staff to 60 and expansion in existing markets for grid optimization and the EV market, according to a press release.
AI load predictor for Ontario
A month later in April 2013, BluWave-ai announced the release of its load predictor for the province-wide Ontario electricity system. The tech company assembled a suite of predictors for energy optimization which are deployed worldwide with customers using the SaaS products BluWave-ai Edge and BluWave-ai Center. The system-wide load predictor was successfully used before for Tata Power and their load management for Mumbai, India.
Predictions are based on publicly available system data, weather feeds, and other data provided by industrial and commercial customers. It provides accurate day-ahead and intra-day forecasts to system operators coupled with EV storage provides grid balancing system-wide solution, available as a subscription service. The system is retrainable with customization for other electricity systems worldwide.
“Previously the variability in running a grid came exclusively from load variation from economic and cultural activities and variability of renewables, requiring a lot of dispatchable energy from carbon emitting sources to keep the grid balanced,” said Paul. “With BluWave-ai’s system-wide load predictors and wind and solar predictors already deployed worldwide, we now have a unique offering with our EV Everywhere program. This will allow aggregation of EVs to provide system operators with a dispatchable energy resource at scale allowing for grid balancing by using EVs as a collective negative or positive load as required.”
So why Kanata North?
Kanata is a perfect place for BluWave-ai to call home given its proximity to over 540 tech companies located on their doorstep. It provides opportunities to network and collaborate with like-minded individuals.
Another bonus, Paul said, is the access to Carleton and UOttawa university students who are looking for internships. They’ve also recruited from the University of Waterloo and McGill in Montreal.
“There are a lot of researchers in Canadian universities. That provides a talent pool of people who are already studying in this field. There are not a lot of companies in Canada within our category at this time,” said Paul.
Paul said it’s needed to work with many countries outside of Canada because they are more open to testing out and taking a chance on newer technology. He has plans to open offices worldwide.
“The Canadian market has been more conservative on risk-taking with startups, whereas the rest of the world has been more curious to leap ahead and try new things,” said the BluWave-ai founder. “Often Canadian customers default to seeing if others are using it because it is the first one.”
By Charlie Senack, Ottawa Business Journal
