IV-Lead Weekly | What's new in the B2B world?

We‘re moving away from centralized power plants, and entering the era of the distributed grid enabling a peer to peer market. Fsight’s obejctive is to implement viable solutions that will free modern societies from their fossil fuel and nuclear dependencies thanks to their grid management solutions. Fsight is at the forefront of this effort, with distributed grid management based on AI.

As an innovative company, Fsight enrolled IV-Lead’s services to assist them with with the expansion of their presence in the renewable energy market, IV-Lead originated a comprehensive marketing plan and strategy that would boost Fsight’s stake within the market.

IV-Lead aided Fsight’s appearance at various renewable energy events, like the European Utility week held in Paris November 2019. For which we created marketing content to be distributed and showcased at Fsight’s boot, which we booked at EUW. IV-Lead representatives also accompanied Fsight to the event and aided Fsight on location.

IV-Lead took on the challenge of creating and updating their blogs, leverage aggregated analytics and SEO optimization for google, and implemented Hubspot CRM. IV-lead also enrolled Fsight in various successful ad campaigns on the most respectable social media networks. The renewable energy market is a flourishing and competitive one to get a stronghold in. This is where IV-Lead stepped up to the challenge and is working to make Fsight a household name in the renewable energy market.

Vexigo offers a variety of digital services. From digital advertising to increase your reach and user engagement, to monetization solutions to drive your revenues as well as a mobile game development studio. Vexigo delivers compelling results through its proprietary, patented technology.

“For the past few years, we have tried all kinds of tools, for email marketing and lead management. Most tools at some point have either become too expensive for the value they deliver, or not powerful enough to manage both the scale and reach we were looking for, as well as our own sales cycle”, Says Tal Ozery, Vexigo’s CEO.

We wanted to personalize our outreach and nurture a real connection with our prospects, so that if the offer is right - we’ll know we’ve found a good partner to mutually grow with.

IV-Lead teamed up with Vexigo and implemented Hubspot, generated and organized a large database of qualified leads, and originated automatic email sequences. This allowed Vexigo to segment and personally reach their audience and grow their partnerships. Vexigo is now able to follow-up and reach out to a large number of clients in a relevant and efficient way.

IV-Lead is a B2B Digital Marketing and Sales agency with professional experience and high creativity. We provide our clients with a variety of services to help them improve their digital brand and create better communication with their clients and their industry.

HB Group is one of Israel’s leading enterprises heading 3 different divisions; safety, learning, and Innovation, which together provide comprehensive services for corporations related to the safety world of both physical and virtual assets (Data, Facilities and Employees).

As with most well-established companies that have been around for decades, modern problems arise and need to be dealt with swiftly and accordingly to secure the company’s relevancy in an ever-evolving market. Even though HB Group maintained the same quality services and respectable reputation, its infrastructure lacked certain digital tools and solutions to secure their relevancy throughout our digital times.

Sasi Bachar, VP Marketing & Business Development at HB Group for the past 5 years, has initiated the plan for a revolutionary transformation in the company, especially in the digital world but also in their marketing strategy altogether.

“HB Group is a strong company, with many years of experience and a strong foot-print in the safety world of Israel, working with many of the biggest companies in Israel like Microsoft and Intel, and many governmental branches as well.

What happened to us was very natural, and probably happens to many, if not all, mature companies in Israel who entered the digital world with the belief that our history and reputations were enough to excel in the new market, and that digital is only a suggestion for companies who have already proved themselves. And also, that marketing strategy that has worked before, are going to continue to work and that we can count on them.”

In order to tackle these issues and stay ahead of the curve, HB Group approached IV-Lead for potential solutions. After presenting HB with a detailed marketing strategy, competition analysis, and execution plan, Sasi was determined they can begin to re-establish their grip in the Israeli Market to which the company’s sectors needed digital restructuring.

We were more than happy to tackle the issues at hand and presented HB with a comprehensive, actionable Marketing plan to boost their online presence and make use of modern marketing channels and tools to increase their reach and ultimately boost their revenue.

Part of our strategy was to optimize HB’s websites in order to better leverage aggregated analytics and SEO optimization, create and ensure the upkeep of their news and blog articles as well as their social media presence. IV-lead also enrolled HB in various successful ad campaigns on the most respectable social media networks.HB successfully expanded the reach and awareness of their brand and services with the assistance of IV-lead’s skillful proficiency in Digital Marketing.

In today’s multifaceted energy world, a growing number of prosumer assets are increasing the complexity of power grids. Decentralized systems with solar generation, wind turbines, and electric vehicles provide promise for a decarbonized future, but also bring along challenges for both utilities and prosumers.

Distributed Vs. Centralized

The energy market is now moving away from centralized power plants and entering the era of distributed grids and peer-to-peer markets. Multiple elements of the energy ecosystem are evolving at a dizzying speed. We are seeing a very complex market emerging, where the distribution company needs to allow more and more renewables and flexible energy assets to be installed behind the meter, while maintaining a stable local grid. At the same time, prosumers who have installed such flexible assets want to optimize their energy flow to maximize the value of their investment.

It’s very logical to manage electricity consumption so that you sell when it’s expensive and buy when it’s cheap. Artificial intelligence and deep learning algorithms can be applied in the energy sector in a very interesting way in this context. As the end users are becoming “prosumers”, smart devices are proliferating, big data is available for analysis, renewable energy sources are growing, and business models and regulations are adapting.

Combining it all together can help us get to the point where energy flows at the optimal timing, direction and volume. With artificial intelligence algorithms to determine when to produce, consume, store and trade energy, to the cost benefit of the end user, the service provider and the grid operator. With thousands of emerging energy communities, this vision might become clearer and perhaps even the reality, by the year 2023.

Creating the future.

No one knows what the future holds. However, More and more sustainable communities are currently under simulation and the first phase of the pilot is planned for two years, with possibility for extension. With over 100 million electric vehicles predicted by the year 2025, 1 billion prosumers (private and industrial), more than 10 billion smart devices — it’ll be a huge challenge to maintaining reliability and secured supply and grid stability.

These changes require a completely new operating paradigm, and there is no better test for technology than real life. New models are already being applied at various levels in Australia, California, Germany, Austria, Israel and many other countries around the world.

In the USA, for example, by 2025 9% of the entire electricity generation will be generated “behind the meter” — by people’s houses. This figure is translated to $12 billion that won’t flow to the traditional power manufacturers — this change is expected to evolve and spread all over the world.

A perfect example for this is Kibbutz Ma’ale Gilboa in the northern area of Israel. The kibbutz is a microcosm of the future electricity market in the sense that is has all the variety of prosumers types: residential, commercial and industrial, agriculture etc., and it also has all the production capabilities: photovoltaic, wind, pumped storage etc.

Early believers will disrupt the energy market.

Examining the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report shows the tremendous implications of every additional 0.5°C of global warming, and how important it is to accelerate the transition to a carbon-free economy.

I am confident this transition is possible and can be done even faster than expected but it is clear that it will require unprecedented collaboration between countries, companies, organizations and billions of people. I believe we are facing the most complex challenges in the history of our civilization, but if we focus our energy and act together, we will overcome it.

Once again, we are joining Fsight at one of the biggest events in the world for renewable energy. With over 20,000 visitors from around the world, European Utility Week presents an opportunity to meet and share experiences with all energy stakeholders in order to shape a sustainable energy future together.

EUW is the landmark event for the power industry and a precious guide to acclimate ourselves through the energy transition.

Fsight has won last year’s 1st place in Accelerate 2 Initiate! pitch contest held in European Utility Week, and was chosen by E.ON Agile to collaborate on a smart energy pilot. This year, after experiencing significant growth through partnering with notable companies like Schweighofer, Andritz, Uniper, and Verbund - Fsight is looking for more partners to join their growing consortium on the riveting Gilboa Iris Project, which grants DSO’s, VPP’s and C&I companies substantial knowledge pertaining to the viability of an optimized, efficient and sustainably distributed electricity grid.

If you are a part of the energy market and would like to hear more about Fsight’s projects, go here: www.fsight.io

Ma'ale Gilboa is hosting a pilot by an Israeli-Austrian startup, chaired by the former Austrian chancellor Christian Kern.

Former Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern, who left office in December 2017, is currently visiting Ma'ale Gilboa, in northern Israel, a religiously observant kibbutz. Kern previously visited Israel as a guest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but his current visit is very different. A month ago, he was appointed chairperson of Austrian-Israel startup FSIGHT. His new job entails spending one week each month in Israel in order to supervise FSIGHT's pilot on the kibbutz. Large Israeli and European energy companies are participating in the pilot.

FSIGHT, founded in 2015, currently has 18 employees. It is developing a software platform for smart management of distributed energy grids. The company has raised €7 million since it was founded, and is currently raising €25 million more in a round led by European infrastructure investment fund SPB Beteilgungsverwaltung.

FSIGHT was founded by Amos Lasker, who was CEO of Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) (TASE: ELEC.B22) in 2007-2011, and Eveline Steinberger-Kern, Christian Kern's wife. Steinberger-Kern had a vision, shared by her husband, of developing a comprehensive end-to-end system for smart management of the future energy sector. Israel's energy sector is not particularly advanced, but Steinberger-Kern decided that she wanted Israeli technology, with its global reputation, to realize her vision, and joined forces with Lasker in founding FSIGHT. They decided to locate the pilot in a kibbutz. The owners of FSIGHT are energy investment company Amrav Investments, owned by Lasker and Ram Belinkov; Israeli energy company Triple-M Power Plants; and Austrian energy company The Blue Minds Company (TBMC), owned by Steinberger-Kern, who holds most of the shares in FSIGHT.

Storing energy and selling it to the neighbors

The pilot is testing the platform's ability to manage effectively, reliably, and accurately the consumption and sale of energy in a sector composed of industrial enterprises, residential buildings, and agricultural concerns, such as a kibbutz. Christian Kern told "Globe," "The energy market changes quickly. It will also change in Israel, but the change in Europe and the US is faster. In the future, in addition to buying electricity from the central grid, the consumer will also sell to it. This empowers small consumers and private individuals with solar panels on the roof."

The pilot is for three years. Current participants include Austrian energy companies Verbund and Andritz; Israeli energy companies RD Energy, Dalia, and Wien Energie; Turkish energy company EnerjiSA; and Hungarian company NKM. Each of these companies pays thousands of euros a year for the right to participate in the pilot and market the platform after it is completed.

The electricity sector is currently built from the top down. Electricity is generated in large power stations and is transmitted to consumers. In recent years, however, it was realized that the future energy sector will be decentralized. Consumers will no longer be dependent on large producers; we will all be both producers and consumers. Every household, enterprise, and business will generate electricity from solar panels. If a surplus is accumulated, it will be stored in batteries for future use or sale. When there is a shortage, electricity will be purchased from the central grid or from another small producer.

Before becoming Chancellor of Austria, Christian Kern was a director at Verbund, the largest electric company in Austria, and became CEO of Austrian federal railway company OBB in 2010. He dealt extensively with the energy sector in both positions, and formed a vision for the future, which he now shares with many of the prominent concerns in the energy and electricity sector.

Kern says, "It's very logical to manage electricity consumption so that you sell when it's expensive and buy when it's cheap. Artificial intelligence and deep learning can be applied in the energy sector in a very interesting way in this context." FSIGHT's platform is one example of using such technologies for a smart platform in management of a distributed electric grid. "We have a brilliant team, many of whom worked at Better Place. They achieved a lot in predicting electricity prices, and based on that, are trying to establish a peer-to-peer energy trading systems in the pilot," Kern explains.

FSIGHT CEO Emek Sadot worked in Shai Agassi's Better Place. Until the company's notorious crash, he was a senior manager for batteries, charging systems for electric cars, and smart electricity grids. He says that adoption of a decentralized energy system is only a matter of time. "I always compare it to electric bicycles. Once the product works and the public buys it, things will never be the same. The same thing is about to happen in the electricity sector. Once there is a battery that is economically worthwhile, I'll install it in my home; I won't wait for anyone's approval," he says.

"Every household wants two things: it consumes electricity and it wants to save money. It doesn't matter whether it's a commercial concern, a factor, or a private home. FSIGHT does optimization inside the house, so that the customer can use the cheapest electricity. If the price of electricity rises, the system will accumulate electricity in your battery, and if there's a surplus, it will sell it to your neighbor."

Electricity prices set to fall 20% in the future

These models are already being applied at various levels in Australia, California, and Germany. In Israel, a policy was set in late 2017 allowing factories, residential neighborhoods, military bases, and small businesses to produce electricity independently using natural gas. At the same time, implementation of distributed electricity production does not exist in practice, due among other things to technological difficulties delaying the option of producing electricity on a small scale, storing it in batteries, and managing its sale and purchase from innumerable different sources. Despite these difficulties, the Ministry of National Infrastructure, Energy, and Water Resources and IEC senior executives, like the rest of the world, all agree that production of electricity will be decentralized in the foreseeable future. There is disagreement about how to decentralize the energy sector, such as whether electricity in such a sector will be priced by a central agency or by market forces.

FSIGHT's platform was designed for use in a future electricity sector that does not exist yet. Its implementation in most countries depends on technological and regulatory developments. Kern is aware of the obstacles, but he believes that technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and that the problems will be solved soon. He says, "I'm rather optimistic, because two years ago, the price of a one-kilowatt per hour battery was €2,000; now it has already reached €250. Furthermore, in the batteries sector in Germany and China, the volume of batteries is rising, and this will improve more in the next 10 years. The ability of end-consumers to buy and sell energy will cause a significant drop in the price of electricity. If we take into account what we're doing for our European customers, there will be a 20% drop in prices."

The company's products are already being sold in Austria, Australia, Turkey, Hungary, France, and Israel, where the system is used mainly to optimize consumption. FSIGHT's end-to-end management platform is also being applied in the kibbutz pilot. Another pilot in cooperation with US energy company Solaria is scheduled to begin now in California with a grant from the Israel-United States Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation (BIRD-F).

Management and optimization of electricity consumption: How does it work?

The platform developed by FSIGHT is designed to optimize electricity consumption in a distributed electric grid. Sadot says, "If households are able to manage this efficiently it will also help the national system, because it will lighten the burden on the central grid." In order to do this automatically, he explains, the system operates on three levels: "The first part is forecasting. For every household, we predict when it will consume electricity and how much, when it will produce electricity and how much, and the price of electricity at any given time" using an artificial intelligence algorithm on the information in every grid.

"The second part, based on the first, is that the system makes automatic decisions about what to do with the energy: it makes sure that at any given time, we get electricity at the lowest price." The system does this through a regular choice between buying energy and self-production and storing the energy.

"In the third layer, there is a trading system. Blockchain also comes in here. We did proof of concept (POC) with two Etherium-based technologies. One is called Tobalaba - a system built by an association called Energy Web Foun, is specially adapted to energy, but it belongs to IBM, which makes it more widely available."

The establishment of blockchain among startups working in the decentralized energy sector is fairly common. Power Ledger, one of the leading companies in the field, operates in Australia, where implementation of the distributed electric grid is most advanced. The company develops an energy trading platform based on blockchain technology, and held an initial coin offering (ICO) to raise money for developing the platform.

In contrast to Power Ledger, FSIGHT develops an end-to-end solution, and uses blockchain only for decentralized trading. FSIGHT does not plan to hold in ICO. At the same time, the decision to use blockchain technology is likely to excite some people and deter others who are fed up with the trend. Seeking to sooth anxieties, Sadot says, "We regard blockchain as a technology that can serve us in distributed trading from many endpoints, not as a goal."

He adds that in the pilot, two blockchain technologies will be evaluated for the purpose of establishing a trading system, together with a third possibility that is not based on blockchain. In the end, the company's pilot will select the technology that proves to be the best.

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 24, 2019

Creating the Future Electricity Market. innovation-driven companies are invited to join the Gilboa Iris International Pilot

One of the interesting and promising companies in the electricity sector in Israel is Foresight or FSIGHT. It is a hi- tech oriented company that combines AI (artificial intelligence), big data algorithms and smart grid management as well as infrastructure units such as smart batteries. II&S met Emek Sadot, FSIGHT’s CEO, to hear and to learn firsthand about the company’s vision of the future electricity market.

Could you describe the upcoming change in the electricity market? ‍It’s been over 260 years since a bolt of lightning sparked the world of electricity as we know it. The energy market is now moving away from centralized power plants and entering the era of distributed grids and peer-to-peer markets. Multiple elements of the energy ecosystem are evolving at a dizzying speed. End users are becoming “prosumers”, smart devices are proliferating, big data is available for analysis, renewable energy sources are growing, and business models and regulations are adapting. These changes require a completely new operating paradigm. This is why we’ve developed Energy AI, FSIGHT’s platform for managing distributed grids based on artificial intelligence.

How does FSIGHT fit into the new electricity landscape? Energy AI ensures that in a distributed environment, energy flows at the optimal timing, direction and volume. Energy AI uses artificial intelligence algorithms to determine when to produce, consume, store and trade energy, to the cost benefit of the end user, the service provider and the grid operator. With thousands of emerging energy communities, FSIGHT’s vision is helping billions of prosumers efficiently manage their energy flow and transition to an energy-sustainable society.

Could you explain this in detail? Energy AI learns and profiles the behavior of each prosumer and chooses – automatically and in real time – the most cost-effective strategies for using, storing and trading energy. When connected together, Energy AI agents collaborate to optimize the operation of the local grid operator and service provider. It’s based on a 3-tier architecture: ‍

Forecast behind the meter consumption, production and energy prices by using machine learningProduce a real-time operation plan based on various data sources, combined with predictions, constraints, end-user self-interest, grid requirements, ancillary services and ecosystem objectivesExecute real-time traditional energy trading (peer to grid) or blockchain based energy trading (peer to peer).

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Basically, Energy AI follows several simple steps: communicating with smart devices, profiling end-user behaviour, forecasting, enforcing real-time decision and trading. ‍

These changes require a completely new operating paradigm. This is why we’ve developed Energy AI, FSIGHT’s platform for managing distributed grids based on artificial intelligence

‍ How do you see the company in about five years? No one knows what the future holds, but the prosumer and decentralisation changes are irreversible. With over 100 million electric vehicles,1 billion prosumers, more than 10 billion smart devices – it’ll be a huge challenge to maintaining reliability and secured supply and grid stability. Our current developed solution is capable of handling thousands of different end points. It is a modular solution that enables us scaling-up to millions of end points, if needed, in relatively short time. ‍

How do you examine the effectiveness of your solution? There is no better test for technology than real life. Thus we deployed our solutions in various countries and various locations in order to verify and test our technology. To that end, we have deployed our solutions across Europe (for example, Turkey, Germany, Austria), we’re initiating projects in California and Australia but our flagship site is the pilot that we run in Kibbutz Ma’ale Gilboa. The kibbutz is a microcosm of the future electricity market in the sense that is has all the variety of prosumers types: residential, commercial and industrial, agriculture etc., and it also has all the production capabilities: photovoltaic, wind, pumped storage etc. Soon we will install in the kibbutz batteries as storage capability. According to our plan we will add residential batteries for the photovoltaic production sites which are a home kit but also shared batteries, with a capacity of hundreds of kilowatts, in the kibbutz’s open space. With this infrastructure we could simulate – today – the behaviour of the future electricity market having different market needs and regulatory regimes. In other words – in different countries. We believe that such a pilot offers a tremendous opportunity and is applicable for international players as well as for service providers and utilities across the globe. ‍

Who are your business partners for the Ma’ale Gilboa pilot and what kind of additional collaborations are you looking for? Our current, and future target, business partners are the leading service providers companies. For example, Dalia Energies Ltd. which is Israel ́s largest independent power producer (IPP) and accounts for about 8% of the Israeli electricity sector services and products, and the new challenges that will accompany them etc.. ‍

With thousands of emerging energy communities, FSIGHT’s vision is helping billions of prosumers to efficiently manage their energy flow and transition to an energy- sustainable society

‍Apart from utilities, do you think that participating in this pilot could be a business catalyst for other innovative companies? Absolutely, last year Bloomberg published a report (“New Energy Finance 2017”) that presented the expected progress of the “behind the meter” electricity market. In the USA, for example, by 2025 9% of the entire electricity generation will be generated “behind the meter” - by people’s houses. This figure is translated to $12 billion that won’t flow to the traditional power manufacturers – this change is expected to evolve and spread all over the world. The innovative companies that are taking part in this pilot are already gaining deep knowledge and hands-on experience that is already turning into new business opportunities.

How important is it to make this transition to a sustainable grid, and do you think it can really be done? Examining the latest UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report shows the tremendous implications of every additional 0.5°C of global warming, and how important it is to accelerate the transition to a carbon-free economy. I am confident this transition is possible and can be done even faster than expected but it is clear that it will require unprecedented collaboration between countries, companies, organizations and billions of people. I believe we are facing the most complex challenge in the history of our civilisation, but if we focus our energy and act together, we will overcome it.

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you can read the whole issue here.