AutoGrid has been nominated for the 2026 World AI Awards in the Battery Management category, recognising its work using artificial intelligence and energy software to coordinate batteries and other distributed energy resources across increasingly complex electricity networks.
Battery management at grid scale is a different problem from monitoring a single battery. Thousands of home batteries, electric vehicles, solar installations and commercial energy assets can sit across the same electricity network. Their available capacity changes constantly. Utilities need to understand when those resources can absorb electricity, reduce demand or send power back to the grid.
That is the problem AutoGrid was built to tackle.
The World AI Awards recognises organisations, individuals, products and technologies contributing to the development and application of artificial intelligence across industries.
AutoGrid’s relevance to Battery Management comes primarily through its virtual power plant and distributed energy resource management technology, which uses software to aggregate energy assets and coordinate their flexibility rather than treating every battery as an isolated device. The U.S. Department of Energy has described AutoGrid’s Flex platform as technology enabling utilities and energy-service providers to aggregate and optimise distributed energy resources.
Turning scattered batteries into a coordinated energy resource
A home battery may spend much of its life waiting for an outage. AutoGrid’s approach looks at what else that stored energy can do without ignoring the needs of the customer who owns it.
Its software has been designed to bring distributed resources together into virtual power plants, where fleets of batteries and other flexible devices can be managed as a coordinated resource.
The technology can analyse information from energy assets and use machine learning to anticipate patterns in electricity demand. National Grid Partners, an AutoGrid investor, described the company’s Energy Internet Platform as using machine learning to process information from millions of energy assets and predict demand patterns.
That creates several possibilities. Batteries can charge when conditions are favourable, reduce household or commercial demand during grid peaks, or potentially discharge electricity when additional capacity is needed.
The battery still sits in somebody’s home or business. Software changes how its flexibility can be used.
Battery storage becomes part of the virtual power plant
AutoGrid has put that idea into practical programmes.
The company previously operated the Flex Saver Home Storage Program with Southern California Edison, which connected eligible SolarEdge storage inverters and LG Chem batteries. Participants could use energy stored in their solar batteries or send electricity back to the grid when needed. The programme has since concluded, making it a completed deployment rather than a current offering.
AutoGrid has also worked with battery manufacturer sonnen to integrate its Flex energy-management technology with sonnenBatterie systems.
The partnership was designed to allow utilities, project developers and energy-service providers to aggregate battery systems and pursue different uses for their capacity, including demand response, resource adequacy and participation in wholesale electricity markets.
This is where the Battery Management category becomes particularly relevant. AutoGrid is not primarily a battery manufacturer or battery-management-system supplier at the cell level. Its role sits higher in the energy stack: deciding how fleets of storage assets can participate in a wider electricity system.
AI tackles the balancing problem
Electricity grids have always had to balance supply and demand. Distributed energy makes that equation more complicated.
Solar panels produce power according to weather and daylight. Electric vehicles connect and disconnect. Customers change their consumption. Batteries move between charging, idle and discharging states.
AI and forecasting software can help utilities process those changing conditions and determine how much flexibility is actually available.
AutoGrid became known for applying AI-driven optimisation to this problem. When Schneider Electric moved to acquire the company in 2022, AutoGrid was managing more than 6 gigawatts of distributed energy resources across 12 countries, according to reporting at the time. Those resources extended beyond batteries to EV chargers, solar installations, thermostats and industrial equipment.
That distinction matters. AutoGrid’s technology does not manage batteries alone. Battery storage forms part of a much broader network of flexible energy resources.
AutoGrid’s ownership changed, but the technology story remains
AutoGrid’s corporate position has changed substantially since its earlier deployments.
Schneider Electric completed its acquisition of a controlling stake in AutoGrid in July 2022. Schneider described the company as a provider of Virtual Power Plant and Distributed Energy Resource Management System technology.
The story moved again in February 2024.
Schneider transferred AutoGrid to energy technology company Uplight as part of a reorganisation intended to bring complementary capabilities together. Schneider’s financial reporting confirms that transaction closed on February 8, 2024.
That history is important when assessing the nomination. AutoGrid’s contribution to battery management is best understood through the software and virtual-power-plant technology it developed, rather than assuming AutoGrid remains the same standalone company it was when many of its best-known deployments were announced.
Graham Cooke, President of the World AI Awards, said:
“AutoGrid’s nomination highlights an important side of battery management that goes beyond the battery itself. As energy storage becomes more distributed, the challenge increasingly involves understanding when thousands of individual assets can charge, discharge or provide flexibility to the wider electricity system.
“AutoGrid’s work in AI-driven optimisation and virtual power plants demonstrates the opportunity for intelligent software to help coordinate those resources at scale. We congratulate AutoGrid on its 2026 World AI Awards nomination in Battery Management and look forward to following how this area of energy technology continues to develop.”
AutoGrid joins organisations, researchers, entrepreneurs and technology developers being recognised through the 2026 World AI Awards.
The programme recognises organisations, individuals and technologies contributing to the development and practical application of artificial intelligence across industries.
Battery management represents a particularly physical version of that challenge. AI is not simply generating information on a screen. Software has to interpret changing conditions across real energy assets and help determine how stored electricity can be used while respecting operational and customer requirements.
AutoGrid’s work shows how that intelligence can move beyond an individual battery. Connect enough distributed storage together, combine it with forecasting and optimisation, and batteries that once operated independently can become part of a much larger, flexible energy resource.
Learn more about the technology and current AutoGrid context through Uplight.
Discover the World AI Awards 2026, explore the nominees and learn more about the awards at worldawards.ai.
