Czech Investors Fuel Delta Green’s Largest Virtual Power Plant in Europe

• Prague-based Delta Green transforms household energy devices into a virtual power plant for grid balancing
• The platform proved itself in its home market, enabling households to earn while supporting renewable integration
• Expansions across Europe are underway, partnering with major energy suppliers, addressing local grid flexibility

This October, Delta Green—the Czech digital platform turning household energy assets into an interconnected virtual power plant—secured fresh funding of EUR 2M. The round’s investors are the startup’s long-time supporters, such established, well-known, and proactive Czech VC funds as Purple Ventures (invested in Kilde recently), Credo Ventures (invested in Collabwriting, among others), and Tilia Impact Ventures (invested in The Village).

From One’s Own Home Automation to Energy Innovation

The founding team comprises seasoned Czech entrepreneurs and software engineers David Brožík, Prokop Čech, Lukas Benes, and Jan Hicl, who spent their careers building software startups. Delta Green started from their own everyday needs as they began with coding small automations for their homes — managing solar panels, EVs, and heat pumps. Over a little time, they realized that all these devices could be controlled and managed together and that this kind of aggregation could have a huge impact for energy suppliers — the sector in which they worked, too.

In other words, they built the solution first for themselves as homeowners, and then for as an energy supplier. ‘As the saying goes, we really do ‘eat our own dog food’ — we use what we build every day. That’s why we understand the problems so well and know exactly what needs fixing,’ Mr Hicl says.

Pioneering Household Participation in Grid Balancing

Delta Green was originally founded in 2008 as Nano Green, a small renewable electricity retailer within Nano Energies — one of the pioneers of green power in Central Europe.

‘After Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis made that model unsustainable, we acquired the company in 2022 and began transforming it into a digital SaaS energy tech firm. The rebranding to Delta Green in 2024 marked the pivot from a green electricity supplier to a flexibility aggregator helping households play an active role in grid stability,’ Mr Hicl recalls.

That same year, Delta Green became the first company in the CEE region to test household participation in grid balancing, proving that domestic renewable systems can deliver flexibility once reserved for fossil plants. Following this successful field testing, the startup raised its first investment of EUR 2.2M from Tilia Impact Ventures, Credo Ventures, and Purple Ventures.

‘We have watched Delta Green for two years and when the right moment came, we were the first who decided to invest in 2024. We are convinced the founders team is exceptional, motivated and excellent in both technology and sales drive. The market potential in aggregation of household electricity demand and supply is huge and ever growing in long years to come,’ Purple Ventures’ general partner Jan Stanek tells ITKeyMedia.

As such, Delta Green evolved into a software-first company aiming to modernize an energy sector still resistant to change as the persistence of negative electricity prices and small-scale blackouts across Europe revealed how slow the industry has been to implement flexibility solutions. The startup’s platform focuses on addressing fragility in local distribution networks by coordinating household energy devices to prevent overloads and stabilize the grid.

A Homegrown Small-Scale Supplier with Big Impact

At that, Delta Green continues to operate a small energy supplier in the Czech Republic, using its 7,000-customer base as a testing ground to refine its technology before licensing the platform to large utilities. Despite the energy sector’s razor-thin margins, the company remains profitable by running efficiently and monetizing both its customer portfolio and software platform.

‘One of the most surprising learnings is people’s motivation. Many customers told us they joined not just for the financial rewards, but because they see grid balancing as a meaningful way to help renewables integrate better into the grid. Quite a few even said they’d be happy to participate without any monetary incentive — simply because they like the idea of contributing to a cleaner, more resilient energy system,’ Mr Hicl shares.

The results also demonstrated that automation and transparency drive adoption far more than complex control interfaces. Once customers clearly understand the benefits, often earning up to EUR 500 annually through automated participation, their willingness to engage increases dramatically.

Perfect Timing for Flexibility Aggregation

‘We are really happy to see that Delta Green’s timing for their flexibility aggregation solution was perfect. Just as the market realized the importance of this kind of solution for energy transformation towards greater sustainability, the company already had a real solution in place that the energy companies can instantly use, because it’s been tested on Delta Green’s own retail customers,’ Tilia Impact Ventures’ partner Pavel Petřek comments.

As subsidies for photovoltaic systems fade, this model offers a new form of energy self-sufficiency. The ongoing phaseout of energy subsidies and net-metering schemes across Europe is driving both consumers and retailers to seek smarter energy management solutions. This policy shift has increased demand for technologies that help optimize household energy use and provide retailers with new competitive tools, technologies like Delta Green’s.

Partnerships and Expansions

Delta Green’s success as an energy supplier validated the platform’s software-first approach and led to teaming up with E.ON, one of the top three major players in the Czech Republic’s energy market. This marked a major milestone for the startup, enabling a massive number of Czech households to earn from their energy flexibility and proving the model’s scalability.

Consequently, strong international demand was sparked, leading to new deals in multiple European markets and positioning Delta Green as a key player in grid balancing innovation.

With flexibility now proven at scale, the company is rapidly expanding as major energy retailers across Europe adopt its platform. Reportedly, projects are already launched in Romania and Italy, and piloted in Hungary, Austria, and Slovakia.

‘The key insight is that trust and simplicity matter most. By removing friction and ensuring households maintain full comfort and control, we created a scalable model for consumer energy participation that’s already shaping its partnerships abroad,’ Mr Hicl states.

According to him, Delta Green’s international expansions reflect the company’s strategic focus on markets where flexibility is becoming both a regulatory and economic priority. These countries share similar traits as the Czech Republic — rapidly growing renewable capacity that challenges grid stability, regulatory frameworks increasingly supportive of demand-side flexibility, and strong interest from major energy suppliers looking for a competitive edge through innovation. In each market, Delta Green partnered with local energy providers who understand the key role of flexibility aggregation.

Navigating Fragmented Regulations

In view of those expansions. Delta Green still operates strictly within national grid boundaries without balancing the grid across borders. The regulatory challenge comes from the lack of harmonized aggregation rules across Europe, even though the EU Clean Energy Package already recognizes the key role of aggregators. Every country has its own requirements for contracts, imbalance responsibilities, prequalification, and settlement procedures for flexibility services.

‘Cross-border balancing is still limited by European regulation, but upcoming EU harmonization initiatives such as MARI and PICASSO may change that in the near future,’ Mr Hicl notes.

Meanwhile, each country’s transmission system operator runs its own balancing market with specific rules, prequalification standards, and settlement mechanisms, and Delta Green drives its value from aggregating household flexibility within each national market to deliver ancillary services to national grid operators, while also optimizing household consumption based on local spot prices and network conditions.

In other words, Delta Green maintains market-specific compliance processes while running a unified technology platform.

‘Fragmented frameworks add operational complexity and slow down market entry — especially in countries where the rules around independent aggregation are still unclear or where distribution system operators don’t yet have the data infrastructure needed to coordinate effectively with flexibility providers,’ Mr Hicl admits.

Data Security and Scalable Architecture

From a data perspective, running a virtual power plant with massive amounts of households implies handling massive amounts of real-time data, including telemetry, forecasts, behavioural models, and control signals, — all under strict security requirements.

The Delta Green team employs a gateway-mediated architecture with encrypted communication between household devices and the cloud, unique asset authentication, and granular access controls to prevent unauthorized access. This layered approach protects against cyber threats that can appear as routine technical issues or manipulated device data.

‘We collect only the telemetry needed for optimization and grid services, not for unrelated commercial use. Real-time monitoring helps us quickly detect and respond to anomalies, while our distributed architecture ensures there’s no single point of failure — households can operate autonomously even if cloud connectivity drops,’ Mr Hicl assures.

Strategic Priorities and Expansion

The newly raised EUR 2M are meant to help Delta Green expand its virtual power plant across Europe. More specifically, the co-founders list three strategic priorities with clear milestones:

• Finalizing the software to enable full-scale household participation in grid balancing services — a major step from successful pilots to commercial deployment by the end of 2025. This will ensure offering grid operators a reliable, cleaner alternative to fossil peaking plants.
• Accelerating the expansion into Western Europe. With deals already closed in Romania, Italy, Hungary, and Slovakia, Delta Green is in advanced talks with several major international energy suppliers. By the end of 2025, the platform expects to manage tens of thousands of households, positioning it as Europe’s largest household-based virtual power plant. The partnership with E.ON in the Czech Republic serves as a blueprint with the potential to replicate this model across their European markets.
• Team growth, especially in software development — since Delta Green’s competitive edge lies specifically in its technology platform. The types of controllable assets are also to be expanded beyond home batteries to include heat pumps and EV. By increasing flexibility further, each household can provide and help participants earn or save hundreds of euros a year through smarter energy management.

In conclusion, Delta Green sees its mission in putting households at the heart of Europe’s energy transition by building the continent’s largest network of flexible homes. Demonstrating how residential flexibility can replace fossil fuel power plants in the billion-euro balancing market can fundamentally change how grid stability is maintained as generation of renewable energy grows.

‘This isn’t just about technology — it’s about proving that ordinary households can actively participate in energy markets, earning income by providing services that were once delivered only by centralized generation,’ Mr Hicl states.

As market demand accelerates — driven by the end of subsidies, the rise of spot tariffs, and increasing renewable intermittency — major European energy retailers reveal increasing interest in solutions like Delta Green’s. This validates that flexibility aggregation has moved beyond the pilot stage and is becoming essential infrastructure for competitive energy suppliers.

By enabling ordinary homes to actively participate in grid balancing, Delta Green provides a scalable, cost-effective alternative to fossil fuel plants while empowering consumers to manage and monetize their energy use. As renewable generation grows and energy markets become more dynamic, Delta Green’s platform highlights the transformative potential of decentralized, software-driven solutions in creating a more resilient and sustainable energy system.