Evergen: Battery orchestration and virtual power plant software for Australian energy retailers

Overview

Evergen began in 2015, when AMP Capital and CSIRO's energy group came together to commercialise battery optimisation software developed at CSIRO, according to its about page. The first product, launched in August 2016, was an intelligent home solar and battery system that used weather forecasts and household data to run the battery, sold at about AUD 9,900 for homes that already had solar.

Over the following years the company moved from selling its own systems to licensing the software. By 2020 it was aggregating customer batteries for Ausgrid's virtual power plant trial, and by 2022 pv magazine reported more than 100 MW of assets and about 7,000 home batteries on the platform. Today it describes itself as a platform for retailers, networks, battery makers, commercial sites, utility-scale owners and property developers rather than a VPP operator.

What sets Evergen apart in the Australian market is brand coverage. It connects 36 battery and inverter brands through their manufacturers' clouds, so a retailer can enrol a mixed fleet without fitting extra hardware. Enphase's April 2026 announcement described it as one of Australia's most advanced VPP orchestration platforms, used by several Australian and New Zealand retailers.

Offering

Evergen sells one cloud product, the Evergen Platform, configured for different buyers.

Platform modules

Forecasting predicts consumption, generation, weather, grid demand and market prices. Control runs automatic optimisation with manual override. Bidding is a market-agnostic tool for wholesale markets, ancillary services and VPP programmes. Monitoring combines vendor-supplied and inferred data, alerts flag faults and offline assets, and reporting gives fleet and asset telemetry for back-office reconciliation.

Optimisation

Behind-the-meter optimisation minimises a site's cost using its battery and controllable loads, re-planning every 5 minutes. Front-of-meter optimisation monetises dispatchable assets with co-optimised bidding, rebidding and compliance reporting. For utility-scale owners the pitch is revenue across several markets while meeting power purchase agreement obligations.

Apps and white label

A customer app, customer portal and installer portal can carry a partner's brand. For battery makers, Evergen offers single-screen monitoring, a partner portal for commissioning and access to its network of installers and retailers.

Retailer offers

Evergen also publishes a page of retailer VPP offers open to batteries on its platform, including Origin Loop, ENGIE's VPP and a New South Wales offer called Battery Ease, each with its own eligible brands and payments. Pricing for the platform is not published.

Technology

Evergen is cloud-native, and its news page carries an August 2023 announcement that the platform runs on AWS. It connects to batteries and inverters through what the OEM page calls external cloud-to-cloud APIs, so supported devices need no gateway or extra hardware on site. The utility-scale page adds that larger assets can connect through commodity hardware or hardware-less integrations.

Devices

The integrated partners list names 36 battery and inverter brands, including Tesla, Sungrow, SolarEdge, Enphase, AlphaESS, GoodWe, Sigenergy, FoxESS, Redback, SolaX, Solis and Growatt. It also lists EV and charger makers (Tesla, Ohme, myenergi, Ocular), smart metering businesses (Intellihub, Bluecurrent) and grid or billing platforms (Gentrack, AutoGrid, mPrest, Powerledger). The integrations page covers PV, batteries, meters, hot water, EV chargers, EVs and air conditioning.

APIs

Evergen lists external, mobile, OEM, device onboarding and off-boarding, static system data, device forecasting and device telemetry APIs. Gentrack integrated its g2.0 billing product with the platform in 2023.

What is not documented

No public page describes a local protocol path such as Modbus, SunSpec or OCPP, or the CSIP-AUS profile of IEEE 2030.5 used for Australian dynamic export limits, although a case study covers dynamic operating envelopes. Because control runs through each manufacturer's cloud, a manufacturer outage or API change affects that brand's fleet.

Security

The company states it is ISO 27001 accredited and shows ISO 9001, 14001 and 45001 marks, without publishing certificate details.

Customers

Evergen's named deployments are with Australian networks, retailers and developers.

Networks

Ausgrid's first VPP phase in 2019 built 1 MW from 270 customers. In June 2020 Evergen joined phase two, opening it to its own customers and to owners of Tesla and AlphaESS batteries. The company reported that 33% of its customers had opted in. Its later VPP article says it joined with 80 participants and that Ausgrid used the batteries for demand reduction and voltage support.

Retailers

Powershop, an online retailer, built a mixed-fleet VPP on Evergen's DERMS, battery optimisation and hardware integrations. Gentrack said in 2023 that its integrated product was live with an unnamed Australian tier 1 retailer.

Developers and communities

Economic Development Queensland ran a home energy pilot at Carseldine Village, controlling residents' batteries and appliances. GemLife uses Evergen as the energy management system for its over-50s resorts, with multi-market optimisation. Unnamed case studies cover retailer battery trading, DER visibility, dynamic operating envelopes and grid stabilisation.

Earlier channel partners included 8 Star Energy, which sold Evergen-enabled Energizer batteries, and Solar Service Group, according to RenewEconomy in 2020.

Markets

Australia is Evergen's market. Its deployments sit in the National Electricity Market states, and the retailer offers page lists programmes covering New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and the ACT. The contact page gives offices in Newcastle and Sydney and says staff work in other countries, without naming them.

Buyers fall into six groups on the homepage: battery and inverter makers, energy retailers, network operators, commercial and industrial sites, utility-scale asset owners and property developers. Retailers and networks are where the VPP evidence sits; the commercial, utility-scale and developer offers have fewer public deployments.

The 2026 Enphase announcement, also covered by SolarQuarter, says retailers in Australia and New Zealand use the platform. It ties the integration to the federal Cheaper Home Batteries Program, which can cut eligible battery costs by up to 30%, and to state schemes in South Australia and New South Wales.

International expansion has been a stated goal since the 2022 Series B, when the company said it would build capability for large renewable and battery projects overseas, and the 2023 Gentrack partnership was framed as global. No overseas deployment is documented on its site.

Company

Evergen was incorporated in 2015 as a joint effort of CSIRO and AMP Capital, according to a 2018 company announcement. Its contact page names the head office as Newcastle East, New South Wales, with a second office in Sydney; pv magazine described the company as Sydney-based in 2022.

Funding

At its 2016 launch CSIRO invested AUD 800,000 alongside AUD 2.9 million from AMP Capital and a former AMP executive, for AUD 3.7 million in total, IoT Australia reported. In 2018 the shareholders began a process, advised by PwC, to find a new majority owner; the outcome was not announced. A Series A of just over AUD 6 million, partly crowdfunded through VentureCrowd with Artesian and AMP Capital, closed in 2020. In June 2022 FRV-X, the venture arm of Fotowatio Renewable Ventures, led a AUD 15 million Series B and took a significant minority stake.

Ownership

In May 2023 Gentrack listed Evergen's shareholders as FRV-X, Providence Climate Capital, AMP, Artesian Capital Management and CSIRO Energy. The website footer now names the trading entity as Pacific 2022 Bidco C Pty Limited. Headcount is not published.