The AI-Driven Pursuit Of Clean Energy

Racing Toward Renewables

The Hawaiian sun beat down on the lava fields as Devashish Paul pushed through mile after grueling mile of the Ironman World Championship. Between labored breaths, he noticed something unusual dotting the stark volcanic landscape: wind turbines spinning lazily in the tropical breeze, while solar panels glinted in the harsh sunlight. Here, in one of the world’s most punishing races, Paul found himself running past a vision of the future: clean energy being harvested straight from nature itself.

It was the mid-2000s, and Paul, then a successful semiconductor industry executive, was still years away from founding BluWave-ai, the climate-tech company that would later help utilities and fleet operators optimize their renewable energy usage through artificial intelligence. But as he ran through Hawaii’s Natural Energy Laboratory, past those fields of wind turbines and solar panels, it dawned on him that the computing platforms he worked with in his day job could be perfect for harnessing the power of all this clean energy data.

“Energy was being harnessed out of just the air and the sun,” Paul recalled. “Those people are having a positive impact on society.” By 2013, when he returned to Hawaii for another race, that initial spark had evolved into a clear vision: Paul’s expertise in computing could be instrumental in advancing the renewable energy revolution.

Mission-Critical: Listen and Learn

Before he was a tech entrepreneur or even a competitive athlete, Paul was an officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Stationed in Ottawa, he developed an appreciation for mission-critical systems and operations, discovering an operational tempo and urgency that would later feel familiar in startup life. 

“In the armed forces, you’re training for deployments, and then you’re actually having to keep equipment or operations up,” Paul explained. “That training being in a mission-critical type of scenario - It’s useful in a startup in terms of understanding the value of mission-critical systems and how you operate in that.”

After leaving the military, Paul built a successful career in the semiconductor industry, working with Integrated Device Technology where his products found homes in an impressive array of technologies: cloud data centers in 3G and 4G wireless networks, medical imaging devices, Samsung Galaxy smartphones, Apple Watches, and even defense systems. 

This diverse experience taught him a crucial lesson that would later shape his approach to entrepreneurship: “Every one of them is a different computing problem. The fundamentals of the math are similar, but the actual application is different. So the important thing that I learned is that you need to talk with people in the particular industry on how they implement the math.”

The Starting Line

The transition from concept to company was gradual. Upon his return to Hawaii to race again in 2013, Paul recalled feeling curious about how his semiconductor expertise could be applied to clean energy. He had begun noticing an opportunity emerging for industries generating massive amounts of data: transportation, agriculture, natural resources, and especially electricity grids. But it wasn’t until 2017 that he began laying the groundwork for what would become BluWave-ai.

The final push came from an unexpected source: a fellow Ironman competitor and friend who ran a software consulting company. A trusted advisor who had watched Paul’s career evolve over multiple decades, this friend had demonstrated keen investment instincts, successfully picking several technology winners in their private portfolios. 

After Paul shared his ideas about applying AI to renewable energy during one of their meetings, ideas that he had even brought to companies he had been interviewing with at the time, his friend delivered the crucial motivation: “Stop worrying about doing these for other people. Why don’t you just go do your own company? I’ll invest in your company and then let’s see what other investors we can get. But don’t go work at a large company or for someone else because they’ll screw it up. And I have confidence that you’ll figure it out.”

That encouragement, backed by initial investment, was all Paul needed. In 2017, BluWave-ai was born with a mission to help decarbonize the planet through data and AI. Within months of starting BluWave-ai, Paul demonstrated the intensity and focus that would become hallmarks of the company’s approach. He noted, “We filed for U.S. patents within the first four, five months of starting the company.” This decision would prove prescient, as the company has now filed 30 patents, with eight granted and a 100 percent success rate on applications.

The early vision centered on using AI to optimize renewable energy integration into power grids. But getting the first customers to take a chance on the young company required both ingenuity and networking skills Paul had honed during his semiconductor days.

A pivotal early break came through careful research of the industry. Paul read a white paper from Natural Resources Canada about the state of the Canadian grid and noticed a section about AI applications that aligned perfectly with BluWave-ai’s mission. “I got in touch with the author  through LinkedIn and I said, ‘Hey, I’m actually doing a company like the last section of your white paper - That’s exactly what my company does. Can we meet for discussion?’,” Paul recalled.

This interaction would lead to introductions with utility directors and VPs across Canada, eventually connecting him with the Prince Edward Island-based municipal utility, Summerside Electric, which would become one of BluWave-ai’s first major implementations. By 2019, BluWave-ai and Summerside had achieved a significant milestone: North America’s first AI-enabled energy dispatch. The project would go on to remove over 64 million kilograms of carbon from Summerside’s energy usage through smart grid optimization just two years in.

Breaking Down the Race

Paul approached building BluWave-ai the same way he tackled an Ironman Triathlon - by breaking down an enormous challenge into manageable segments. “The whole thing’s 140 miles,” he explained. “That seems very daunting. So you focus on the next minute, the next 200 yards, the next quarter mile, the next mile.”

This philosophy translated directly into how BluWave-ai operates, with the company implementing 90- and 180-day planning cycles for their teams, including all management and directors. “You can’t be successful in a race six months from now if you don’t do everything during the six months to build up towards that. So we have 90- and 180-day plans for everyone, and that helps them get their mindset towards where they want to go,” Paul noted.

The endurance mentality has proven particularly valuable in the startup world, where success often requires pushing through seemingly impossible challenges. Paul’s experience as an athlete taught him the importance of keeping his team oriented toward achievable near-term goals while maintaining sight of the larger mission.

This disciplined approach has guided BluWave-ai through several critical expansions of its product line. The company started with its Smart Grid Optimizer before recognizing the growing opportunity in electric vehicle fleet management. Paul explained, “If you think about an EV, it’s a battery that’s connected up to the grid. It actually changes how much energy the grid has to give.”

He continued, “We realized that the platform we were building for the grid would need to be able to deal with EVs. And we have all the AI predictors for wind, solar, real-time market pricing, electricity loads, and then the optimizer to manage batteries. So adding EVs to that whole system was kind of a logical extension. And we always had our eyes on that. We were just waiting for the EV market to pick up.”

The strategy has paid off. In February 2023, the company secured a $9.5 million Series A financing round, including a strategic investment from PowerON Energy Solutions, a subsidiary of Ontario Power Generation, which is responsible for approximately half of the electricity generation in Ontario, among other existing and new private investors. The financing demonstrated investors’ confidence in BluWave-ai’s expansion from grid optimization into the EV market - a move that echoed Paul’s athletic training philosophy of building on established strengths while pushing into new territory.

The Technology Stack

BluWave-ai’s core innovation lies in taking the massive amounts of data generated by utility companies and leveraging it to enhance renewable energy usage. “These electricity utilities and electricity generators, they have a lot of data coming out of their operations through smart meters, through sensors,” Paul observed. “They actually throw away a lot of the data because they actually can’t use the data to make good decisions. They just have no way of knowing across their grid what’s going on.”

The company’s AI platform uses this data to predict, optimize, and control how renewable energy is injected into the grid, reducing reliance on coal and natural gas. For fleet operators, it helps maximize the use of EVs over diesel alternatives. “We’re able to basically do that in an automated way with our software running in the background,” Paul stated. “So their data comes in, goes into our cloud - All the AI happens in there. And then, we send a signal back into their operations and their IT systems or their assets, and their operations consume that and take actions. There’s no humans who need to figure out what to do.”

Paul likens the system to a smartphone ecosystem: “If you want to think about it like a smartphone, you’ve got your operating system, your camera, your phone, your applications like social media apps - LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram - your maps application. They all work together on one platform and integrate with each other. Our job is like that for the grid - We integrate disparate elements and make them work [together] so they’re aware of each other.”

The company has built two main product lines: Smart Grid Optimizer and EV Fleet Orchestrator. The latter integrates directly with vehicles, chargers, building energy management systems, and any on-site solar or battery storage to ensure each vehicle gets the right amount of charge at the lowest possible cost, preferably from renewable sources. A third product, EV Everywhere, helps individual EV owners optimize their charging patterns through a mobile app, allowing them to opt into smart charging programs that can reduce their electricity bills while supporting grid stability.

Paul elaborated on EV Everywhere, stating, “The customer can decide when they want to leave, with how much charge, and if they even want to opt in to smart charging or not. They can opt out and they can get the full-speed charge from their charger connected to the grid. Or, they can opt in and go with smart charging - Save money, save carbon, and get the right amount of energy when they need it.”

EV Everywhere works at the consumer level in conjunction with utility companies like Hydro Ottawa in Ontario. The system uses a proprietary “BluScore” that considers renewable energy mix, clean energy forecast, current and forecasted demand, grid strain, and energy costs to help individual EV owners make smart charging decisions.

In Summerside, BluWave-ai showcased the full capabilities of its sophisticated Smart Grid Optimizer by orchestrating a complex network of renewable resources. The system weaves together wind turbines, solar panels, diesel backup generators, and utility-scale storage while managing controllable loads and connections to local wind farms. Through continuous monitoring of the electricity network, it analyzes usage patterns to deliver energy in ways that reduce both cost and carbon footprint.

More recently, the company’s EV Fleet Orchestrator has shown similar promise for revenue fleet operators in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Initial analysis and simulation showed a 13 percent reduction in emissions and energy costs for Dubai Taxi Corporation (DTC). In 2023, the two companies signed a partnership to further advance the application of BluWave-ai’s AI solutions to DTC’s 2,000-plus EV taxi fleet.

This technological foundation has attracted significant attention, with BluWave-ai raising over $16 million in funding to date, primarily from family offices and corporate investors like Ontario Power Generation. The company is currently working on a $31 million Series B financing round, with term sheets signed by energy companies and industrial customers in multiple markets. Paul admitted, “It’s not a lot of capital up to this point, but we were kind of trying to be efficient because the market wasn’t there for everything that we’re doing. But now the market is emerging.”

Global Impact

What began in Ottawa has expanded to have worldwide reach, with BluWave-ai’s rise accelerated by a series of prestigious recognitions. In 2019, the company was selected as a finalist in the Start Up Energy Transition Award by the German Energy Agency, leading to their victory in the smart grid category at the World Energy Congress in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. 

This international validation opened doors across multiple continents and sparked several projects, including work with the World Bank. “We met with several customers from all around the world who were interested in renewable energy, maybe using AI,” Paul recalled. “Getting that exposure opened our eyes to how much pull there was from elsewhere in the world, not just in our Canadian or North American markets in the U.S.”

The company’s success stories now span the globe. During the COVID-19 pandemic, BluWave-ai managed city-wide energy dispatch in Mumbai, India with utility company Tata Power - a deployment that earned them the Indian Smart Grid Forum Diamond Award. “We basically told the utility exactly how much power they need every 15 minutes, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” Paul reflected.

On the company’s partnership with DTC in Dubai, Paul noted, “Since COP 28, we’ve been live with the EV Fleet Orchestrator in the Dubai taxi fleet, basically sending recommendations to drivers on when to charge or when to pick up fares.”

Throughout this growth, the company has leveraged its strong relationships, including with Microsoft Azure for cloud computing and Smartcar for vehicle connectivity, allowing them to interface with vehicles from Tesla, Hyundai, Kia, BMW, Jaguar, and Mini.

Going the Distance

Like an endurance athlete always pushing for a better time, Paul isn’t satisfied with BluWave-ai’s current success. He sees a massive opportunity ahead, particularly as renewable energy adoption continues to accelerate. “Around the world renewable energy is progressing anyway,” Paul asserted. “Whether it’s a blue state or a red state - Texas is the renewable energy champion of the U.S. right now - It doesn’t really matter which party is running the Oval Office. There’s jobs. There’s energy. There’s money to be made with renewables and electrified transport. So that will keep on happening.” 

To his point, the U.S. Department of Energy estimated in 2017 that total investments for grid modernization in the U.S. alone require from $350 to $500 billion. In Ontario alone, the EV population is forecasted to reach 1.7 million by 2030.

For Paul, the mission remains clear: “Use data and AI to help decarbonize the planet. If we can be a part of the ecosystem that does that, it will have been a success.” 

The name BluWave-ai itself embodies this mission, with “Blue” representing Earth’s oceans and climate, and “Wave” representing clean electricity waves. “Most of the world’s climate is in the oceans,” Paul explained. “If you burn too much carbon, the ocean temperatures rise. The ocean temperatures rise, you end up having hurricanes and typhoons, or you have droughts in other parts of the world because it becomes too hot. The key is to keep the ocean temperatures from rising.”

Paul believes that focusing on the environmental mission is paramount: “Making the money is secondary to pulling all of this off. But if we pull it all off, it’s guaranteed to do well financially.” 

As Devashish Paul and his team race toward their vision of a decarbonized future, they’re proving that the finish line isn’t just about making money - It’s about making a difference. Just as he learned in those grueling Ironman races, success comes not from focusing on the distant finish line, but from executing each step of the journey with collective purpose and precision. With the global energy transition accelerating and EVs becoming mainstream, BluWave-ai’s journey from a Canadian startup to a global cleantech leader is just beginning.