Key takeaways:
PowereX was recognized as a finalist at The smarter E AWARD 2026 for its AI-driven Energy Management & Trading System (AI EMTS) project
The platform aggregates more than 2,000 telecom UPS systems into a virtual power plant while maintaining backup power availability
AI-based optimization enables participation in grid services and energy markets without requiring additional hardware installations
Backup power units are typically installed to provide electricity during power outages. When operating normally, these units remain largely unused. With the growing demand for grid flexibility, there is increasing interest in utilizing these distributed energy assets beyond their primary function.
PowereX, an energy technology company based in Slovakia, has been named a finalist for The smarter E AWARD 2026 in the Outstanding Projects category for its AI-driven Energy Management & Trading System (AI EMTS). The project aggregates more than 2,000 decentralized UPS systems deployed across Slovakia’s telecommunications infrastructure to form a virtual power plant (VPP).
Traditionally, UPS systems are designed to serve a sole purpose of providing emergency backup power and are not considered dispatchable energy resources. Through its AI platform, PowereX coordinates and controls these distributed systems while ensuring their primary function of providing backup power.
The project uses high-frequency data acquisition and AI-driven control algorithms to predict and optimize real-time data, which helps forecast, plan, and dispatch energy assets. The AI platform continuously evaluates market conditions, energy availability, and operational requirements to determine the participation of energy assets in energy markets without compromising the backup power obligation. This enables the project to deliver peak-load reduction and grid support while creating additional revenue opportunities from the existing infrastructure. All of this is achieved without any additional hardware installations, only through software-based coordination among these assets.
This project demonstrates how existing energy infrastructure can be integrated using just software, converting decentralized energy assets into a coordinated energy resource.