Podero, an Austrian software company, offers utilities the ability to steer residential solar inverters, batteries, air conditioners, and heat pump usage, along with other home systems, and to trade the aggregated device loads.
“The majority of our customers are involved in solar power generation. Our platform is fundamentally built to empower users to maximize the value of their energy assets, making it a natural fit for anyone with a PV system.” Chris Bernkopf, Podero CEO and co-founder, told pv magazine.
The company sells its software as a service (SaaS) directly to energy utilities. There are two levels of service. One is Podero Instant, a ready-to-launch white-label integration for home energy systems management with integrations of dozens of brand-name devices, including heat pumps, electric vehicle (EV) chargers, batteries, air conditioners, smart thermostats, and solar inverters.
It schedules and controls PV production with self-consumption or flexible tariffs, without requiring any additional hardware installation, according to the company.
Homeowners can be incentivized with rewards or savings for being flexible with the use of their devices. Over 54 devices from original equipment manufacturers (OEM) are integrated, such as Vaillant, Viessmann, Huawei, Nibe, Fronius, and many others doing business in the European market.
The decisions about which manufacturers' equipment to integrate are opportunity-driven, according to Louis Jabbour, head of partnerships, who noted that , adding that “the integration roadmap is influenced by the needs” of its clients. “We proactively build relationships with key original equipment manufacturers (OEM) at industry events and through direct outreach,” Jabbour told pv magazine.
The other Podero product is the fully-integrated trading package with forecast-support, enabling trading of aggregated device flexibility on key electricity markets, including spot day-ahead, intra-day, and balancing energy markets.
It connects to enable trading via secure, standards-compliant application programming interfaces (API), according to the company.
Podero has been demonstrating the benefits of the software with several partners, including E.ON Sweden, which rolled out a Smart Heating service with a branded smartphone app to customers. The project began with Podero Instant for a soft launch, and scaled into a full trading integration in a virtual power plant.
Another partner in Austria, oekostrom AG, used Podero’s software to launch its smartSparen automated smart tariff product that brings spot-market optimization directly to households.
Podero products provide solutions to current issues, such as solar-related curtailment, electricity market price volatility and rising imbalance penalties. It notes several other drivers, such as increased technological competition from startups and new digital-first competitors, the need to decarbonize while funding grid modernization projects, and limited internal resources to enable rapid roll out of flexible products for end customers.
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Austria, the company is active in Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Austria, Estonia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, and Czechia.
In early 2025 it raised €5.5 million ($6.4 million) in a seed round led by established early-stage venture capital investors.
Podero sees potential growth beyond the residential segment. “At the moment, the residential market is the primary driver of demand for our solution. We are actively exploring the commercial solar space and are very excited about the opportunities it presents,” said Bernkopf.
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