Extensible Energy Launches “Virtual Battery” Software that Reduces Demand Charges and Increases ROI

DemandEx™ software analyzes solar production, utility rates, and flexible loads, then intelligently reduces peak demand charges by 30%. No storage required.

Berkeley, Calif., September 9, 2019 – Extensible Energy™ has released DemandEx™, an inexpensive “virtual battery” for reducing demand charges and increasing ROI for commercial solar projects. The award-winning SaaS solution is easily integrated into new or existing commercial solar systems and can be used to decrease the cost and size of energy storage.

DemandEx uses proprietary AI algorithms to analyze real-time solar production, weather data, utility rates, and building usage patterns. It then dynamically controls the building’s flexible loads for optimized demand charge and Time-Of-Use (TOU) savings. After a one-day installation, the software automatically anticipates and prevents peak demand spikes, delivering 30% savings on the demand charge portion of the utility bill.

“The commercial solar market has shown slow growth in recent years, in part because solar is great at saving energy, but not on demand charges,” said John Powers, CEO of Extensible Energy. “One cloud can ruin your whole month. That’s why we created DemandEx – to help solar developers deliver much higher total savings on a commercial customer’s utility bill. We can control the flexible loads of the building to match the output of the solar installation, all without expensive new hardware or bespoke engineering.”

DemandEx works best with existing or new solar installations in non-residential buildings, such as offices, schools, universities, churches, retail, and municipal buildings. Building owners can achieve higher solar ROI and a reduced payback period without the extra expense, permitting, and fire mitigation requirements of energy storage solutions. When DemandEx is installed with new PV systems, the cost can also qualify for the 30% solar investment tax credit, providing further savings.

"Load flexibility is the giant issue nobody is talking about,” commented Jigar Shah, Co-Founder at Generate Capital. “It's less expensive than batteries as a means of matching solar resources with a building's loads. Extensible Energy’s load-flexibility software is a win-win for the solar contractor and the building owner. Building owners get a higher ROI and faster payback time, and the solar contractor can offer an easy-install demand charge solution with or without batteries."

Extensible Energy initially developed DemandEx with the U.S. Department of Energy and has piloted the software with commercial solar projects in Colorado and California. To date, customers have achieved their projected demand charge savings of 20-35% at a fraction of the cost of battery-based demand charge solutions.

Solar plus DemandEx can achieve demand charge savings with or without batteries. Battery storage can be added for backup power and resiliency.

“DemandEx is just the beginning,” said John Powers. “We’re now creating a suite of solar software solutions that will help solar contractors to shift from selling solar to selling complete energy solutions that make commercial solar sales more cost-effective with or without batteries.”

About Extensible Energy

Extensible Energy is an award-winning SasS provider for the solar, energy storage, and IoT building controls industries. Our mission is to promote the expansion of the commercial solar market through intelligent cloud software that is always adapting with energy, technology, data, and the grid. Headquartered in Berkeley, CA, our developing suite of load flexibility and “solar plus” software is designed to be effective without installing expensive hardware. Visit ExtensibleEnergy.com and follow the company on Twitter and LinkedIn for news about solar energy, demand charge management, grid-interactive buildings, and clean energy technology.