At AES, We Believe in Unicorns. Do you?

We are living in a fast-paced world that requires constant evolution. Since 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the order of things around the world, we corroborated that we needed to adapt and innovate more than ever. This happened in every industry in the world, and the energy sector was no exception.

The world needs electricity to satisfy its most basic to its most advanced needs. We need a reliable supply of energy for healing patients at a hospital but also to use our computers while working at home. But electricity is not only a need of industries and homes. As we transition into cleaner energy sources, it has also become a choice over other conventional sources of energy.

Currently, the debate over energy transition and innovative ways to generate energy is dominating the world. From green hydrogen to 24/7 renewable energy, the future of energy is changing rapidly and energy companies, such as AES, must keep up with this pace. To advance as an industry, large and small companies must collaborate between us, helping each other to evolve.  

An example of this evolution is the Google and AES partnership to develop a first-of-its-kind 24/7 carbon-free energy solution. Google was the first company to become carbon neutral in 2007. Despite being the world’s largest corporate renewable purchaser, it still needed a carbon-free energy solution to run its operations every hour of every day. To achieve such an ambitious sustainability goal, Google saw in AES the right partner to co-create a new, innovative product that incorporated a mechanism to deliver renewable generation at the right time and place to match the demand of Google’s data centers with the load generation profile of renewables on an hourly basis. The importance of solutions like this lies in the fact that they provide a model that can be replicated to accelerate the clean energy transition for companies, and eventually for power grids.  

Just like Google’s solution, our stable is full of unicorns: scalable ecosystems. Fluence, Uplight, 5B and Motor are all examples of what we call scalable ecosystems. It’s how we take innovative partnerships to create impact far beyond what we can do on our own to accelerate the future of energy for everyone. But magic is not only for big high-level corporations, it can happen everywhere; Mexico is no exception.

Considering that in 2020, Mexican industry represented 60 percent of total national electricity consumption (PRODESEN 2021 – 2035), we might say there is a huge co-creation potential since clients are increasingly interested in becoming prosumers and avoiding market risk, finding more competitive prices and not stressing about their supply.

Small and large clients want cleaner energy and are seeking tailored solutions that diminish their carbon footprint while being reliable and flexible, avoiding market risks and volatility. By complying with these, small and large customers stay competitive, accelerate their growth and foster Mexico’s economic development.

Electric energy is a strategic asset for any business that can impact the future and we know that innovation can come from any place. Fulfilling the expectations of this rapidly changing world can only be done by innovating how energy is created. That has been our main commitment at AES. For us, innovation is the key to opening new doors to the Mexican market and we aim to grow in the country in the coming years.

Therefore, we are pushing internal ideas to tackle our market needs with the program AES New Solutions. With this program, we take great ideas and help them take form, nurture them, and accompany them toward commercialization. Focusing on advanced energy networks, new clean energy, scalable ecosystems and cleaner reliability, we study new products pitched by intra-entrepreneurs to see how viable these are and help in developing them.

We are here to stay and to continue investing in energy generation as an innovative, transparent, and socially responsible company partner for our clients. Our commitment is to our customers, to help them run their business with a reliable supply of energy, but also to innovation in the sector, going all the way with new entrepreneurs who want to develop their innovative ideas. We are certain that innovation is the key to resilience in VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity) times.