Engie has acquired Tiko, a Swiss startup whose technology connects electrical equipment (water heaters, heat pumps, solar panels, batteries, electrical outlets etc.) to a platform and makes them controllable. Users can participate in schemes to aggregate connected homes and offer flexible energy consumption, generation and storage, which react intelligently to fluctuations in the electricity network. 

Engie said the acquisition was directly linked to the group’s strategy of decentralisation and digitialsation, and would “ultimately result in the creation of genuine energy communities on multiple levels, from the individual home to the national electricity network” across all its markets.

Yves Le Gélard, chief digital officer of the Engie Group, says: “The unique technology developed by Tiko will enable us to create new services for our residential customers and move towards the building of decentralised energy communities. It effectively completes our portfolios of load-balancing and storage solutions, which are so crucial to the achievement of the energy transition.”

Meanwhile, Engie says the sale of a Thai power company will bring the proportion of coal generation capacity down to 6%, compared with 13% at the end of 2015.

The latest reduction came with the sale of Glow to Global Power Synergy Public Company Ltd. (GPSC) for €2.6 billion, following official authorisation granted on 8 March 2019 from Thailand’s Energy Regulatory Commission. Glow owns and operates production facilities in Thailand and Laos, and employs 800 people. Its portfolio includes total power generation capacity of 3.2 GW, made up of 1 GW of coal, 2 GW of gas and 0.2 GW of renewable energy. Glow also produces steam, as well as clarified and demineralised water.

After this disposal, Engie will no longer have any coal assets in the Asia-Pacific region.