Mogens Birkelund, SC Nordic Founder and CEO: “We are Denmark’s leading partner in the field of ancillary services or demand response programs. By combining this with energy conservation, we empower you to become a smart consumer.”

The Silicon Review

Mogens Birkelund, Founder and CEO of SC Nordic, has a background deeply rooted in entrepreneurship, particularly in the telecommunications sector and international endeavors. The turning point came during Denmark’s hosting of COP15 in 2009, when Birkelund recognized the looming consequences of Global Warming and the subsequent challenges it would pose. Inspired by the potential business opportunities that would arise from the imminent need for change, he ventured into the realm of SmartGrid technology, well ahead of its time. This foresight has propelled SC Nordic from its nascent stage into a flourishing start-up, boasting profitability, organizational growth, and an expanding customer base.

SC Nordic’s mission, epitomized by its moniker “S.C. - Smarter Consumers,” revolves around empowering customers to actively participate in the electrification process. Through seamless integration with the power grid and collaborative engagement with industry operators, the company facilitates a harmonious interplay between energy production and consumption. This novel service model ensures mutual benefit: SC Nordic orchestrates solution design, technology provisioning, operational management, and flexibility optimization for clients, all while garnering a fair share of the resultant revenue. This virtuous cycle underscores the synergy inherent in SC Nordic’s visionary approach.

In conversation with Mogens Birkelund, Founder and CEO of SC Nordic

Q. What are the significant challenges that you have faced in this sector and how did you overcome those challenges?

Developing solutions that provide integration with all aspects of the power grid dictates that considerable technologies must be developed, deployed, and managed. We were faced with the challenge of enabling the built-in flexibility of typical appliances for our customers and maximizing the flexibility that can be developed from their everyday usage. We addressed this challenge by developing a demand response platform, or operating system, where the standard services and integration with the grid are embedded. On top of this platform, we develop dedicated packages for different applications. Customers recognize our platform as TrueGreen, a smartphone-inspired green platform, and the tools for different appliances are implemented as E3-Apps.

Q. Addressing increasing energy demand while simultaneously reducing overall carbon footprint is a difficult task. How do you help your clients adhere to strict government regulations?

TrueGreen enables our customers to utilize fluctuating energy prices and revenue from ancillary services or demand response to develop strong business cases for electrified processes, replacing traditional solutions based on carbon-intensive resources. An example: TrueGreen is used to implement a system combining natural gas and electric boilers, whereby the customer automatically switches between sources of power based on the needs of the power grid. The effect for the grid is that the consumption is converted into a flexible resource, generating a solid business case. The government’s regulators dictate that flexibility must adhere to certain technical demands. Previous solutions prevented the majority of appliances from obeying or delivering to demand, and as a result, they couldn’t integrate.

TrueGreen combines different appliances in a patented solution, whereby the combined packages become applicable to the regulators. Smarter consumers are given access to new revenue streams and green business cases through integration into the TrueGreen platform.

Q. Can you tell us about your collaboration efforts with Norlys?

At SC Nordic, our recent collaboration with Norlys holds immense promise for driving the green transition and offering substantial benefits to production companies. Through our cutting-edge platform TrueGreen, we’re able to provide production firms with automated energy optimization, leading to significant cost savings and the ability to adjust production schedules for optimal efficiency. Norlys shares our vision of energy flexibility as a crucial aspect of achieving a greener society, ensuring a stable power grid even in the face of varying weather conditions. This presents a unique opportunity for manufacturing companies to not only increase profits through flexible operations but also actively contribute to the broader green transition.

In addition, Danish consumers now have the chance to capitalize on excess energy generated from renewable sources such as solar and wind. Manufacturing companies play a pivotal role in this process by adapting their production schedules to match energy availability, effectively helping to balance the grid. Mads Brøgger, Director of Energy at Norlys, emphasizes the dual benefits of this approach: companies can enjoy financial gains from their flexibility while also supporting the shift towards renewable energy sources. Our efforts at SC Nordic have been acknowledged with the ‘Best smart grid and demand response solution developer’ award for the second consecutive year, underlining the alignment of business potential with environmental progress. This collaboration with Norlys is poised to create a more balanced Danish electricity grid and accelerate the adoption of sustainable energy solutions.

Q. What are the anticipated future trends in the energy generation and distribution segment?

Denmark is a world leader in the development of renewable energy production and has reached a level where we are close to 100% coverage for long periods of time. The energy market has been based on hourly pricing of power and tightly integrated ancillary services for decades, and as a result, Denmark is a center of innovation for technologies that keep the balance between production and consumption.

S.C. Nordic is one of Scandinavia’s biggest independent aggregators and is actively working on the energy markets, from the second to the day-ahead markets. Our strategy and goals are to keep developing our technology, where the needs will shift from “energy light and fast service”, to “energy intensive and slower markets.”

Q. Do you have any new services ready to be launched?

We constantly invest in developing the integration of new appliances and bringing additional resources to the market. The newest branch of our E3-Apps drives the integration of large-scale batteries into the power grid. These container-size solutions are managed and integrated through TrueGreen, securing business cases with strong ROIs.

Q. What does the future hold for your company and its customers? Are exciting things on the way?

S.C. Nordic has won the prize as the leading development center for demand response solutions in Scandinavia for the second year in a row. This award has contributed to the formalization of a very strong partnership with Denmark’s second-biggest utility, Norlys.