Hiven breaks new ground in balancing the grid

The grid is under increasing pressure to stay balanced. Renewable energy brings variability on the supply side, while ongoing electrification – especially in EVs and home heating – is driving up demand at specific times. Grid flexibility is a must.

But where should this flexibility come from?

Fortum’s answer to that challenge is Hiven: a cloud-based platform that steers the energy use of connected devices to help balance the grid.

“The energy consumption of devices like EVs, heat pumps and batteries can often be shifted slightly without their users noticing. That flexibility is extremely valuable. It can help to stabilise the grid and even generate revenue for the device owners. This is what we’re working on enabling,” explains Lars Herre, Demand Response Manager at Hiven.

Launched in 2021 as an internal venture, Hiven is now a team of 20 people working across Fortum’s markets. “Everything we do runs through the cloud,” says Herre. “We connect to devices and steer them based on price signals or system needs. There are no dongles, boxes or other hardware. That’s how we aim to bring this to scale quickly and cost effectively.”

Built around the concept of Flexibility as a Service (FlaaS), the Hiven solution comes in three parts:

1. Hiven HARMONIZE – Behind-the-meter optimisation

   By smartly shifting electricity use to cheaper periods, HARMONIZE helps people to save money without changing how or when they use their devices.

2. Hiven TRADE – Front-of-the-meter optimisation

   Devices are quickly switched on or off in response to real-time system needs. In this way, TRADE helps the system operator keep their power system in balance while integrating more renewable energy.

3. Hiven OPTIMIZE – Front-of-the-meter support for electricity retailers

   By making slight adjustments to the charging of devices, OPTIMIZE helps retailers and other parties responsible for grid balancing to improve their demand forecasts and reduce imbalance penalties.

Partners across different industries

Hiven operates its model as a Business-to-Business-to Consumer service (B2B2C) for device manufacturers, energy retailers and EV fleet operators. These partners retain the relationship with the end user – often through their own apps – while Hiven runs quietly in the background, steering connected devices in response to market signals or grid needs.

In the manufacturer space, Hiven already works with one of the world’s largest auto brands and has collaborations with several EV charger makers, including Wallbox Wallbox - External link. On the retail side, Fortum Consumer Solutions and Finnish electricity provider Väre Väre - External link are active users of the solution. In the fleet operator segment, the team has signed an important agreement with a major operator that receives EV deliveries to its site in southern Sweden for distribution across the Nordics.

“Fleet operators represent a particularly interesting use case, as the large numbers of EVs sitting idle for long periods at delivery sites offer a high volume of flexibility. These fleets do not have the tight charging deadlines you find in a residential setting. That makes fleet operators ideal candidates to participate in grid-balancing services – for a financial benefit” explains Herre.

“A real startup moment”

Hiven has now proven the technology for this fleet operator model in Sweden, where grid service providers must contend with a particularly demanding regulatory environment.

The country recently tightened participation rules for its Frequency Containment Reserve for Disturbances (FCR-D), a fast response market run by the national grid operator. When frequency drops unexpectedly – due to a sudden spike in demand or a dip in supply – pre-qualified companies must respond automatically within 2.5 seconds to help restore the balance.

Rising to the challenge, Hiven has become the first technical aggregator in Sweden to gain approval for delivering FCR-D services using EVs and off-the-shelf chargers – without any on-site hardware or local controls. The approval was received in February 2025, following successful tests the previous summer.

“We were almost ready in 2023, but then the requirements were sharpened. We had to bring down the latency step by step. The fastest we got to was 1.3 seconds,” recalls Herre.

“Before the official prequalification, we were in the office long past midnight to run the tests. One colleague kept the heater on in his car for four hours, so we could drain the battery and charge it up again. That was a real startup moment!” says Herre. “We were fast enough to meet the FCR-D requirements and now we have the approval to deliver our service in Sweden for at least the next five years.”

“As a next step, Hiven will investigate the feasibility of wrapping the data in a Distributed Ledger Technology within the InEExS project,” he adds.