Spanish firm Wallbox has unveiled Sirius, an energy management tool to increase the use of renewable energy in commercial buildings.

Representing a shift from the traditional one-direction flow of electricity from the grid to the building, Sirius can manage various energy sources and will automatically choose the greenest or cheapest one available to meet the building’s demand, as well as storing energy surpluses in EVs or battery walls plugged to the system.

With its automated intelligence, Sirius can increase a building’s renewable energy consumption significantly. It also helps solve one of the biggest problems of large-scale use of most green energy sources: its weather-dependent availability, which often results in supply and demand imbalances and consumption inefficiencies.

Sirius is in beta testing and is being used to power Wallbox’s headquarters in Barcelona. In its first six months of use, Sirius increased the building’s renewable energy consumption by 20% and reduced grid dependency by 50%. In this setting, the smart management system uses a fleet of 23 Nissan Leaf cars and Wallbox’s bidirectional Quasar chargers, as well as 750 square metres of solar panels. This is integrated with 560kWh of onsite energy storage and the city’s electric grid.

“When expanding our headquarters, we realised that our energy usage would be up more than 400 per cent,” said Eduard Castañeda, CPO and co-founder of Wallbox. “It would have required a new substation to provide the power we needed, which would take nine months for its full installation. We decided to apply our own technology and saved a lot of time and money while reducing our carbon footprint. Sirius can be applied by companies and cities globally, either to overcome power supply constraints from the grid or to meet carbon emission reduction goals.”

Once beta testing has completed, the system will be available commercially in markets where Wallbox operates.

Sirius is one of the several energy management technologies under development as Wallbox continues to strengthen its commitment to clean energy. In the residential segment, Wallbox will soon launch its solar and wind EV charging technology, known as Eco-Smart, in Europe and the USA. Eco-Smart allows a consumer to use the green energy generated from solar panels or wind turbines at home to charge electric vehicles in an efficient and sustainable way.

“Our vision goes beyond enabling the adoption of electric vehicles by providing the smartest charging solutions in the world,” said Enric Ansunción, CEO and co-founder of Wallbox. “We ultimately aim to unblock the use of renewable energy at scale. That’s why we created Sirius and developed Eco-Smart. These systems are crafted to help cities, citizens and companies transition to sustainable transportation and energy sources, and meet climate goals, while offering economic benefits to our users.”

Wallbox creates electric vehicle charging and energy management systems that redefine users’ relationship to the grid. It goes beyond electric vehicle charging to give users the power to control their consumption, save money and live more sustainably. The firm’s charging and energy management systems for residential, semi-public and public use are in more than 80 countries.

Founded in 2015 and headquartered in Barcelona, the company now employs over 700 people in its offices in Europe, Asia and the Americas.