Moduly

Moduly is a Quebec-based company that designs a modular, stackable battery energy storage system for residential and light commercial use. Its Nødz system consists of a base unit containing the control system, which plugs into a standard electrical outlet, onto which one to five battery modules can be stacked; the modules connect to one another like large building blocks. Each module stores 2.5 kWh, giving a maximum of 12.5 kWh with five units. The base can be wall-mounted or free-standing on four cylindrical feet. The modules charge from the public grid or from a home solar array, storing electricity during low-demand, low-tariff periods and releasing it when it is most useful, such as during peak-price periods under dynamic pricing, and serving as a backup source during outages.

An adapter installed in the home's electrical panel — work the company recommends be done by an electrician — isolates selected circuits so that stored electricity can be directed to prioritized outlets or rooms. A mobile application manages demand, controls electronic thermostats, and optimizes home solar production or the charging of electric-vehicle batteries across roughly twenty car brands. At fleet scale across a sufficient number of homes and businesses, deployments managed by the company's Hubz platform are intended to operate as a smart virtual power plant that balances the grid during peak demand. The industrial design of the Nødz module was carried out by the Montreal firm Punctuate Design, which worked on the assembly, ease of use and portability of the modular batteries and gave the product a discreet, white, smooth-edged aesthetic.

Founding story

Moduly was founded in Quebec in 2019 by Jonathan Lamer, Mario Lebœuf and Alvaro Macias. The technology was developed internally under Macias, who holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières. According to co-founder and president Jonathan Lamer, the founders set out to centralize energy for efficiency purposes, to influence collaboration between electricity users and producers, to have a direct effect on CO2 reduction, and to build a technology that could be integrated easily at the user's premises.

Business model

Moduly supplies its energy storage systems to electricity distributors, solar energy producers and real-estate developers rather than selling hardware directly to occupants: as reported in 2023, end users did not have to purchase the system, which remained the property of the utility, solar producer or property developer. Aggregated deployments are coordinated through the company's Hubz platform, which the company positions as the basis for a smart virtual power plant that helps balance the grid at peak periods.

Traction

As of June 2023 the company had about ten employees and planned roughly six more hires by the end of that year. Contracts had been signed in the United States, with commercial interest described as reaching into the millions of dollars, and the stated objective was to approach 10,000 users by 2024.