MaHui | Energy digitalization service operator ZE Energy closes over 100 million yuan Series A, Source Code Capital co-invests
#MaKe Key Updates from Source Code Capital and MaHui Members
Recently, ZE Energy, a digital energy service operator, completed an A-round funding of over RMB 100 million, led by Hillhouse with participation from Source Code Capital and Creo Capital.
ZE Energy (ZD·POWER) is an innovative national high-tech enterprise at the forefront of China's smart energy transformation and low-carbon evolution. It is a leading domestic provider and integrated operator of smart energy, smart grid, power trading, energy interconnection, and carbon reduction technologies, products, and services. Its R&D capabilities and technical expertise rank among the top in China, and it continues to provide digital and intelligent services in energy and carbon reduction to dozens of local governments and thousands of enterprises in Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shanghai, and other regions.
Founded in 2017, ZE Energy's core team hails from Zhejiang University, and over five years has built an industry-leading, highly capable team. Amid the ongoing digital and intelligent transformation of the energy sector, ZE Energy leveraged its team's more than ten years of accumulated experience in the power and energy industry to launch "Distribution Network Genie" — a first for national power grids — creating an AI platform for digital and intelligent grids and becoming a pioneer in ushering in the era of grid AI. In 2019, ZE Energy was among the first to undertake R&D and practical implementation of "virtual power plant" technology. In 2021, following the announcement of the "dual carbon" goals, ZE Energy pioneered an energy carbon reduction system, offering industrial and commercial users services including energy consumption analysis, energy efficiency improvement, flexible energy management, and carbon asset management. As China's power market reform accelerated, ZE Energy built on its two IP brands — "Magic Lamp Genie" and "Carbon Reduction Genie" — to further launch one-stop integrated energy operation services covering power trading and consumption optimization, demand response and ancillary services, and energy management with photovoltaic and storage system construction. Through years of development, ZE Energy has cultivated distinctive advantages across generation-side, grid-side, user-side, and market trading strategies, becoming one of the few full-chain, full-stack energy internet service operators in the industry. The core technology running through all of this is ZE Energy's virtual power plant technology (ZD·POWER VPP).
"Magic Lamp Genie" and "Carbon Reduction Genie" Integrated Energy Operation Services
As the "dual carbon" strategy deepens, China's energy structure transformation has entered a critical window period. While wind and solar power capacity has grown rapidly, their inherent variability, fluctuation, and intermittency have also created significant challenges for the power system. In this context, ZE Energy was among the first to focus on "virtual power plant" technology, exploring effective ways to enhance power system flexibility and leverage market-based resource allocation. Through advanced information, communication, and control technologies, virtual power plants can aggregate and centrally coordinate massive distributed generation, consumption, and storage resources, participating in power market operations as a special type of power plant and providing strong support for the safe and stable operation of the grid and energy system.
Virtual power plants represent a distributed, multi-type energy resource aggregation and management operating model requiring synergistic advantages across grid-side, user-side, and commercialization dimensions. Single-link operators in the energy industry chain lack sufficient capabilities to enter this space. ZE Energy, however, possesses full-chain closed-loop capabilities: on the grid side, it has years of deep engagement, thorough understanding of grid architecture, operating modes, dispatch strategies, and transmission-distribution coordination, with rich technical accumulation; on the user side, it has developed deep insights into user-side demand scenarios, with standardized solutions for different industries; commercially, it is well-versed in multiple power market trading strategies and can reduce energy costs and improve energy efficiency for clients, giving it commercial advantages. Building on these three capabilities, ZE Energy also has highly synergistic, systematic technical capabilities to achieve stable closed-loop operation that can be replicated at scale. On this basis, ZE Energy is the first domestic operator to achieve full-chain virtual power plant operation, having already deployed virtual power plant projects in dozens of cities across Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Shanghai, with regulation capacity exceeding 1,000 megawatts and annual power management of several billion kilowatt-hours.
ZE Energy Virtual Power Plant Interface
Xuedong Jiang, founder of ZE Energy, stated: "Going forward, ZE Energy will continue to deepen its work in digital energy, leveraging its innovative technical advantages amid the global energy transition to build an energy digitalization platform centered on efficient, low-carbon optimization across all energy sectors. We will help society and enterprises improve energy production and consumption efficiency, continuously reduce carbon emissions, empower China's industrial digitalization and innovative green development, and bring green, low-carbon energy interconnection to all industries and households, contributing to China's early achievement of 'carbon peak and carbon neutrality' goals."
Di Wang of Source Code Capital said: "The rising share of clean energy brings grid balancing and dispatch challenges that create excellent opportunities for virtual power plants. On the user side, sources, loads, and storage — especially as their digitalization and intelligence levels improve — all have potential to unlock massive flexibility. In a relatively marketized domain, ZE Energy has steadfastly explored a Chinese solution for virtual power plants, establishing stable closed-loop control with initial scale and replicability. We look forward to the company continuously iterating its energy digitalization platform and virtual power plant model through the power marketization process, fully realizing flexibility value and supporting energy cleanification."
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