Schneider Electric has partnered with energy technology company Kraken to improve electricity demand flexibility for utilities and grid operators and to facilitate faster connections for data center and industrial companies.

As part of the partnership, the companies will develop a range of tools for Distribution System Operators (DSOs) to monitor grid conditions, forecast congestion, and shift demand in real time.

The tie-up will combine Schneider Electric's One Digital Grid Platform and EcoStruxure DERMS software with Kraken's AI platform, which coordinates distributed energy resources, including EVs, home batteries, heat pumps, utility-scale storage, and industrial loads, to balance the grid and shift consumption.

The companies claim that the system will unlock significant grid capacity without capital-intensive infrastructure upgrades, reducing connection wait times for large loads such as data centers and delaying the need for costly network investment.

"Utilities and grid operators are under real pressure to maintain reliability, respond to shifting demand, and make better decisions with better data, whilst working with aging infrastructure," said Frédéric Godemel, executive vice president of energy management at Schneider Electric.

Kraken chief executive Amir Orad added that the partnership is aimed at extracting more capacity from existing grid infrastructure rather than waiting for a new build. "AI is not just a driver of demand; it revolutionizes the capacity we can get out of the grid we already have," he said.

Kraken was founded in 2015 by UK energy firm Octopus Energy. Octopus developed Kraken as an AI-powered operating system for utilities, initially for use within its own retail business before licensing it externally. The company was officially spun out of Octopus in September 2025 and completed a $1 billion fundraising round in December. Octopus now holds a 13.7 percent stake in the company.