Vera Phipps of NRGsurf on AI, behavioural energy economics, and the future of distributed energy

In this interview for the nech, I spoke with Vera Phipps of NRGsurf about a direction in the energy sector that until recently remained relatively niche, but is now quickly gaining strategic significance. The conversation centred on AI-powered energy management, behavioural energy economics, solar curtailment, distributed energy systems, and the increasingly tight connection between renewable energy and computing infrastructure.

Our conversation went well beyond the story of a single company. We talked about how NRGsurf came together, what makes its approach distinctive, how the team evaluates new markets, why the United States has become one of its main strategic directions, and why the next phase of the energy transition will depend not only on new generation capacity, but also on how intelligently we learn to manage demand, consumer behaviour, and infrastructure.

From PhD research to an AI-powered energy platform

One of the most interesting features of NRGsurf’s story is that the company didn’t emerge as a typical startup built around a fashionable market trend. Its foundation rests on serious research. As Vera explained, the platform grew out of the PhD and postdoctoral research of her co-founder Valeria, who in Austria worked on behavioural energy economics within a Horizon Europe-funded research project. The algorithm at the heart of NRGsurf is a direct outcome of that academic work.

The original question that started everything was about how to study and shift household decisions around energy consumption: when they use solar power and when they draw from the grid, and what exact combination of price signals, incentives, and behavioural mechanisms is genuinely able to influence those decisions at scale.

This starting point matters fundamentally, because it defines how NRGsurf approaches value creation. The company doesn’t treat electricity consumption as a purely technical issue, nor as a process driven only by price. At its foundation lies a different, much deeper observation: people don’t respond identically to the same signals. Consumption patterns are shaped by incentives, habits, context, and psychology.

As Vera put it:

It’s this understanding that became the basis for the AI-powered energy management platform that continuously learns to recognise what works and what doesn’t. Put simply, NRGsurf tries not only to optimise energy distribution and increase renewable energy utilisation. The platform also aims to understand what truly motivates users to change their behaviour. And the key is sensing when automation works better and when behavioural influence is the more effective lever.

What NRGsurf does in practice

At its core, NRGsurf is an AI-powered energy management platform for energy communities. It helps manage electricity consumption in local systems, where solar production, grid energy, and different types of consumers must be balanced far more intelligently and efficiently.

Austria became a natural first market for the company because the country’s mass rollout of smart meters created the right technical environment to launch. This allowed NRGsurf to build a software layer that helps energy communities better coordinate consumption and production.

From a commercial standpoint, the business became especially compelling once the team chose to focus on a broader market inefficiency: the vast amounts of solar energy that are curtailed every day and effectively go unused.

This observation pushed the company to move from straightforward optimisation toward monetisation. Instead of letting surplus solar production go to waste, NRGsurf began rerouting it to revenue-generating use cases.

In Europe, one of the main examples of such a use case became EV charging. Vera framed the idea very clearly:

The results look compelling. Depending on the community type and the solutions deployed, NRGsurf’s model shows a 10–30% reduction in electricity costs thanks to smarter load management. This is achieved through real-time optimisation: when it’s better to use solar power and when to take energy from the grid, alongside a more efficient collective use of locally produced energy.

The model solves several problems simultaneously. It raises the utilisation rate of solar production, helps lower electricity bills for consumers, and creates a revenue share for the company through charging activity. At the same time, it vividly demonstrates why software-based solutions are becoming increasingly important in distributed energy systems: commercial value often lies not in generation itself, but in how intelligently that energy is distributed.

Why behavioural energy economics matters for business

Many tech companies in energy focus on hardware, technical dispatch, energy-storage logic, or market timing. NRGsurf adds another layer that is becoming increasingly important: user behaviour.

This is where the company stands out.

At first glance this may seem a subtle nuance, but commercially it matters enormously. As energy systems become more decentralised and flexibility gains more value, the ability to connect consumers with the option to use electricity more intelligently on their own terms becomes a real market asset. Demand response isn’t only a technical problem. It’s also a social and behavioural challenge.

That’s exactly why behavioural energy economics deserves far more attention in today’s market. Scaling up renewable production is critically important, but so is raising the quality of consumption itself. A platform that gives both household and commercial users the option to consciously participate in grid optimisation can unlock far more value from the same infrastructure base.

From curtailed solar to edge computing

The move toward computing infrastructure wasn’t a sharp strategic pivot for the company. It became a logical continuation of the platform’s evolution. Once NRGsurf had proven that surplus solar could be routed to EV charging stations and monetised through arbitrage, the broader principle became obvious: the platform is in effect a routing mechanism for curtailed energy, where the end node can be any flexible load capable of generating revenue at the edge of the grid.

EV charging became the first such node, but the platform’s architecture was designed from the outset for further extension. The newest and currently most coveted direction has become edge GPU compute — computing capacity for AI workloads, placed where surplus energy actually exists.

The timing of the idea is also telling. Demand for compute is rising sharply, especially in the US, where AI adoption is accelerating across sectors. At the same time, many institutions don’t want to be entirely dependent on large cloud providers. Banks, cybersecurity firms, financial institutions, and other businesses working with sensitive data often need more secure and geographically closer compute resources.

Vera described the opportunity in very practical terms:

NRGsurf’s new model is being built around using local solar energy to power GPU infrastructure. This lowers the effective cost of compute and, at the same time, creates a productive use case for renewable energy that would otherwise be curtailed.

“The sun powers this GPU,” Vera said. “And that means the compute itself becomes far cheaper than if it were going to a major cloud provider.”

It’s here that the company’s proposition becomes particularly interesting for a wider energy audience. This is no longer just a story about renewable energy optimisation. It’s also a story about infrastructure efficiency that combines distributed generation, digital demand, AI growth, and local resilience.

Why the US is becoming the next big market

Although NRGsurf already has real operations and revenue in Europe, the company treats the United States as the next major growth opportunity. According to Vera, the US market looks particularly promising because several factors converge here simultaneously: availability of solar resources, high demand for compute, ageing grid infrastructure, and an urgent need for distributed solutions.

California looks particularly attractive. Not only because of its strong solar resource base or high concentration of tech business, but also because the team knows that market well and has a network there. Vera herself worked in California for many years, and that matters critically when successful market entry depends on relationships, the right timing, and trust.

She also pointed to a broader infrastructure problem. In some regions, data centres are being built faster than the ability to power them appears.

Such bottlenecks make NRGsurf’s model even more relevant. When centralised infrastructure needs years for permitting and execution, distributed solutions become attractive not because they’re fashionable, but because they solve urgent problems faster.

How NRGsurf evaluates new energy markets

In our conversation we also touched on how NRGsurf actually decides to enter a new market. The answer was far more disciplined than simply chasing solar resources.

Vera outlined three key factors the company looks at: the level of forced curtailment, the readiness of the regulatory environment, and consumer types.

This logic matters because it vividly illustrates how market entry in energy actually works. The sheer size of installed renewable production doesn’t yet create a market opportunity. What matters is whether energy is being wasted, whether regulation allows such a model to operate, and whether the platform can integrate effectively with local consumption patterns.

A good example of this complexity is Spain. Vera called it one of the toughest markets in Europe, despite obvious solar potential.

At the same time, resource alone doesn’t automatically translate into market attractiveness.

“There you need to do a lot of explaining and educate the market,” she added. “You may need to bring in partners to deliver a complete end-to-end solution rather than simply saying you have a software product.”

Italy, by contrast, looks more practical for entry right now. “In Italy the market is more developed. The necessary rules are already in place. The demand is there. The only thing left is a bit of bureaucracy to navigate.”

This is a useful reminder for the wider community of energy companies as well. Good market-entry decisions almost never rest on a single parameter. The best opportunities usually appear where infrastructure need, regulatory readiness, partner ecosystem, and user behaviour all align simultaneously.

A software company in the wider energy ecosystem

Another important moment in our conversation concerned where NRGsurf sits in the value chain. The company doesn’t try to be everything at once. It doesn’t position itself as a hardware manufacturer or as a full EPC-style integrator. Its role is the software layer in a broader ecosystem of partners.

Strategically this is a very deliberate position. In energy, companies don’t always need to own the entire chain to create the most value. Often the greatest leverage is concentrated precisely in the coordination layer — the part of the system that manages flows, incentives, timing, and monetisation across different assets and partners.

That’s exactly where NRGsurf sits. It’s positioned between generation, community-side demand, local infrastructure, and commercial use cases, helping to turn fragmented energy flows into a more coordinated system.

In energy, business development still rests on trust

Equally telling was the part of our conversation that touched on business development. NRGsurf doesn’t rely on aggressive cold outreach as the main engine of growth. Instead, the company grows through partnerships, professional relationships, consortium ties, and the trust it has been able to build in the sector.

This corresponds very precisely to how many energy markets actually operate. In sectors that involve utilities, infrastructure stakeholders, energy-community operators, or regulated systems, trust matters enormously. Track record matters. Recommendations matter. Relationships matter. Complex energy partnerships are rarely built through mass sales tactics alone.

Vera also pointed out that once a company fits into the right part of the ecosystem, subsequent growth becomes far more scalable. “After signing, growth becomes practically inevitable, because those partners manage a large number of communities.”

This is an important takeaway for anyone building a business in energy. In many cases, one strong route to market is worth more than a hundred weak conversations.

Why fundraising remains one of the hardest stages

Despite operational activity and revenue in Europe, the company is currently raising a seed round to support US market entry and the development of the edge computing model. Vera was candid about why this stage is so difficult.

That’s all the more true when part of the new model involves capital-intensive infrastructure. Vera explicitly noted that distributed GPU and related assets call for project-finance logic, not just a compelling startup story.

But beyond purely financial mechanics, she also spoke very openly about the emotional side of fundraising. “What probably wears you down most is the sheer length of the process,” she said. “Sometimes you meet one investor and after that everything starts to open up.”

This honesty makes the story even more compelling. Publicly, fundraising is often presented as something far faster and simpler than it actually is. In reality it’s almost always a long process shaped by the right timing, stamina, clarity of narrative, and persistence.

Why founders matter no less than the idea itself

Toward the end of our conversation we touched on a well-known but very important principle of early-stage investing: investors often back founders first, and the idea second. Vera’s answer was immediate.

In energy this principle carries even more weight than in many other sectors. Growth cycles are longer here, the ecosystem more complex, and execution requires a combination of technical, commercial, and organisational competencies.

Vera also described the company’s team in a way that makes clear where her confidence comes from. The business combines the scientific and algorithmic foundation of the co-founder, the product’s technical depth, and Vera’s own focus on business models, finance, and commercial growth.

“I add this layer of creativity, business creativity, and financial understanding,” she said. “That’s why I think we complement each other very well.”

These are exactly the kinds of combinations investors often look for in early-stage tech and infrastructure companies in energy. Not how interesting the idea sounds on its own, but whether the team has enough range and resilience to turn it into a strong business.

Why this conversation matters right now

What makes NRGsurf worth paying attention to is not just the company itself, but what it symbolises in the wider energy market. It reflects a direction that is becoming increasingly visible: value is increasingly created through intelligence, coordination, decentralisation, and the ability to connect sectors that used to be discussed separately.

Solar curtailment, AI, energy communities, grid constraints, local compute, and consumer behaviour are no longer isolated topics. They are gradually becoming parts of a single shared infrastructure story.

In that sense, NRGsurf isn’t just another energy software startup. It’s an example of how the energy companies of the future can become genuinely significant by combining wasted energy, flexible demand, behavioural insight, and the needs of commercial infrastructure in one model.

For me, this became one of the main takeaways of the conversation. The scaling potential here isn’t limited to one geography or one narrow use case. If the model continues to develop in the right direction, it can become relevant for many markets facing the same structural problems: underutilisation of renewable production, ageing grids, growing demand for compute, and the need for faster and more distributed solutions.

My conversation with Vera Phipps reminded me once again that some of the most important ideas in contemporary energy are born precisely at the intersection of disciplines. NRGsurf operates at the intersection of behavioural energy economics, AI-powered energy management, distributed energy systems, the problem of solar curtailment, and edge computing. That alone is reason enough to follow the company closely.

But what makes this story even stronger is that the company has already moved beyond theory. It has travelled the road from research to real deployment, from concept to revenue, and from a European operational base to a broader international growth strategy.

As Vera put it: “We’re entering a market where the problem exists here and now, and we have a solution here and now too.”

That’s exactly why this is a company — and a conversation — well worth following.