EcoPhi — Optimized Hardware + AI
Ebrahim Balouji
What problem is EcoPhi solving?
The worst nightmare of any utility is that they have outages because of the failure of the components. Second is that the grid is aging, and demand is increasing at the same time, so we need to modernize the system, as well as build more substations. So, when you look at the current system, what people do is that they put different hardware doing different things — like protection relays, PQ meters, PMUs, DFR systems, DFL systems, metering systems — when you put them all into a cabin, it becomes very expensive and hard to maintain. And it takes the building a long time to commission all of these components.
What is your solution?
We built one hardware that does the job of all of these hardware, so we minimize the monitoring control system of hardware for this system by 80%. That automatically reduces the building time, as well as cost of building. That is the groundwork, and then by collecting all of this data, we are analyzing using AI to predict potential failures. From that, we can help the utilities avoid outages. We are also one of the very first LLMs that is specifically trained on 20 million data points from various types of grids to write a report, say the root cause, and location of the potential failure. So it's similar to other companies like ChatGPT and so forth, but it's specifically trained on our system data.
What is an assumption in your market that you think everybody else has wrong?
Everybody assumes that grid modernization is a very slow process. But I believe that it can be fast. Because it's been proven to me that it can be faster. You have a win, you have a good product, it can be fast.
What is something your competitors underestimate about this market?
Most people underestimate the value of seeing and visiting people face-to-face.
What has been a challenge for EcoPhi in the last year?
Finding good electrical engineers these days is really off because all of the engineers are absorbed with the AI industry. So, finding a good electrical power engineer.
What does success look like?
In the end, the goal is to do something that is valuable for society and our problems, day-to-day problems. So if you can contribute even a tiny bit to that. That is the meaning of success for us. And we'd like to do that globally.
