If you\u2019re an electricity nerd, chances are you\u2019ve already spent quite a few hours looking at Electricity Maps<\/a> and its mesmerizing export flow animations. This open-source data visualization project<\/a> has been around since 2016. But companies like Google and Samsung are increasingly relying on this rich data set to hit their sustainability goals and empower their own users.<\/p>\n There are currently 20 people working for Electricity Maps and the company has been profitable for a few years. But TechCrunch has exclusively learned it recently raised a $5.4 million (\u20ac5M) funding round from Transition<\/a> and Revent<\/a>, to take things up a notch by investing in the product and the business. Electricity Maps is now both a data visualization tool and an enterprise API for data-driven decarbonization \u2014 and one wouldn\u2019t work without the other.<\/p>\n Founded by Olivier Corradi, a French and Danish entrepreneur and data scientist who previously worked for voice assistant startup Snips<\/a>, Electricity Maps started from an itch to know more about electricity production and consumption. \u201cThere were articles in the press saying that Denmark ran on 100% renewable energy for a day. So I was wondering whether this was true and how long it lasted \u2014 how many hours in the day,\u201d Corradi told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n Image Credits:<\/strong> Electricity Maps<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Electricity Maps aggregates real-time data for electricity production in more than 50 countries around the world. While the company uses open-data sources, employees and community contributors had to build dozens of parsers to standardize this data.<\/p>\n As renewable energy depends on weather conditions (for wind and solar energy in particular), the mix of energy sources constantly evolves. It means that the carbon intensity of the energy produced also changes with the time of the day and the current conditions. And, as you may have guessed, as electricity works a bit like tap water flowing through a vast network of tubes, the CO2 emissions related to the electricity you consume can vary greatly.<\/p>\n Calculating the CO2 emissions can be complicated as there are also a lot of cross-border flows for electricity \u2014 some countries produce more electricity than they actually consume while others have larger electricity needs than production capacity. Electricity Maps has designed its own flow-tracing model to understand which power plant contributes to the electricity you\u2019re consuming right now.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to process all this in our system with what we call a flow-tracing algorithm, which lets us tell you where the electricity is coming from depending on where you are. It can be produced locally, but it can also come from Germany. But Germany imports from Poland, so it could potentially come from Poland, etc. So we need to perform some modelling,\u201d Corradi said.<\/p>\n The company also stores historical data and uses machine learning algorithms to provide 24-hour forecasts. Just like weather APIs are now a big industry, electricity forecasting APIs could become essential business tools in the future.<\/p>\n Electricity Maps founder and CEO Olivier Corradi (Image Credits:<\/strong> Electricity Maps)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The reason why the open-source data visualization project is an essential part of the company is because Electricity Maps wants to achieve as much consensus as possible. Calculating the lifecycle emissions for electricity generation requires peer reviewed studies.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Electricity-Maps-Olivier-Corradi.jpg\")
<\/p>\nFrom carbon intensity to load shifting<\/h2>\n
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