1. Who are you, and what is your role at flexa and in the energy transition?
Entrepreneur in the energy space. CEO & Founder at Flexa. We are building the largest virtual power plant in Europe having connected already 150k+ assets with 1 GB+ of flexible power, thus stabilizing the grid, making DERs more financially anttratcive and enabling a faster transition.
2. If you had to point to one decision, project or technology that has made the biggest difference to flexa's virtual power plant, what would it be?
Go deep before going broad. We went contrarian in the beginning: while most players try to integrate every OEM and device from the start going live in many countries, we decided to go deep only with two different inverter brands, only in Germany. This allowed us to limit operational complexity, to focus on our optimization, forecasting and trading capabilities. Having these foundations is allowing us now to grow much faster.
3. Building a virtual power plant at this scale requires many assets, partners and market players to work together. What have you learned about collaboration along the way?
In immature markets, less partners are better, given the lack of structure and established ways to do business. Thus, we integrate deeply with selected partners (e.g., metering, supply operations) to offer the best product / maximize value generation for our customer.
4. What do you think separates companies that successfully turn new technology into real results from those that struggle?
Vision and persistence. First, one needs to have the right vision of the product (here my cofounders, Bas and Vjeko, with a lot of experience in this market where essential). Second, one needs to constantly push this vision against all the headwinds that will inevitably blow, e.g. due to the grid ops processes in Germany scaling was extremely difficult - 99% of customers ran in unforeseen problems. None of the published processes work off the shelf with the DSOs as such, we needed to create an own team that helps the DSOs with their processes to actually get our customers live. Now we take more customers live than we sell to - multiple thousands per month.
5. Where do you see the greatest potential for technology to strengthen the energy system in the next few years?
The energy system is largely blocked by old processes (see above). AI agents could make all these problems go away.
7. What does this nomination mean to you and to the flexa team?
Recognition that we are making a difference in the energy transition.
Know someone who deserves to be recognised? Nominate them for Technology Optimist of the Year 2026 before 9 November.
Then join us at Kings Place, London on 18 November, where the winner will be announced.
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