Ohme chief executive David Watson didn’t set out to start an electric vehicle charging company. The Cork man may have a degree in chemistry from University College Cork and a PhD in physical chemistry from Cambridge University, but he also spent several years with investment banks and a hedge fund, where he worked as a risk manager, in product structure and as a portfolio manager.
When Watson did strike out on his own, it was with investment company Temporis Capital, which he set up with Derry Guy. Temporis focused on impact investing; Watson took on the role of chief investment officer. And it was there that the focus turned to the energy market.
The company built, owned and managed wind farms, hydrofarms, waste energy and solar projects, first in the UK and then in Ireland. Over time, they started to look at ways of storing that energy.
“I was worried about energy price volatility and imbalance in the grid. So we started to look at containerised batteries as a way of helping to balance the grid,” says Watson. “The more I looked at that, the more I could see that the price of batteries was decreasing in the same way that solar was. I convinced myself that EVs would be the mass form of transport much quicker than people thought.”
That presented an opportunity, Watson thought. “It all started on ‘how do we use EVs to balance the grid’ as opposed to ‘how do we charge electric cars’,” he explains. “Ohme was the manifestation [of] setting up a smart hardware, smart charging company in the first instance; building a platform was the next step.”
Ohme was officially founded in 2017. The term “unicorn” may be a familiar one to those who follow tech investments, but what about “gigacorn”? That refers to a company that has the potential to remove one gigatonne of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. That is what Ohme is aiming for.
The company offers a range of smart chargers that can use live data to make sure that charging takes place at the greenest – and cheapest – possible time, while also potentially providing some stability and support to the grid by providing a way to get rid of excess supply without wasting it.
Choice of chargers may not be the first thing that people think about when they are buying a car, but it is essential. Standing out in the market has brought the company some success too. Ohme’s smart technology has won partnerships with several big-name companies, with Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Polestar, Audi, Skoda and Cupra all signing on to make Ohme their official charging partner. Those deals are a key part of getting the Ohme brand in front of customers and into their homes.
But that provides another opportunity. “They only charge for nine hours a week, they’re plugged in for longer. You could use that to then help balance the grid or actually fill the cars over the cheapest time. That was how I got the idea.”
It isn’t an easy market. There is plenty of competition in the smart charging sector, with companies such as Wallbox, EO and MyEnergi also competing for customers.
And there are some headwinds for the adoption of electric vehicles. There is the cost for one; investing in an electric car is still an expensive business, although competition from newer Chinese brands in the market may change that in time. Tesla has cut its prices in some markets to help boost demand.
In June, Volkswagen said it would temporarily cut production at one of its EV plants in Germany, with weaker sales hitting demand. That was followed in October by the company suspending production of its ID3 and Cupra Born electric cars at its Zwickau and Dresden plants in the first two weeks of October.
The system over here is way more dynamic, that the price changes in real time
— David Watson
Cuts to subsidies haven’t helped either. The support offered to potential buyers of electric vehicles has been reduced in a number of markets as the technology becomes more commonplace, making the initial outlay for consumers more onerous. That may ease as an active second-hand market for the vehicles becomes more developed.
Rising costs in electricity have also eroded some of the advantages of going electric, with on-street charging jumping significantly.
Watson isn’t worried. The latest figures from the CSO show Irish consumers continue to turn to electric vehicles, even if the rate of adoption has shown signs of slowing. In October, one in four new cars licensed were purely electric; in the 10 months to the end of October, electric vehicles accounted for 19 per cent of all new cars licensed in the State.
Ohme is targeting that home-charging market. The key that will drive growth is better electricity plans, enabled by smart meters. But not every household has the option to avail of one yet.
But in the UK, things are more advanced.
“The energy ecosystem is a bit more evolved than it then than it is in Ireland. The energy suppliers get penalised for not balancing their supply and demand and the energy price is also quite volatile,” Watson explains. “First they started with Time Of Use tariffs which were relatively simple; there was a period, a couple of hours in the night-time that was a bit cheaper. So the first chargers had those smart functions that were kind of like digital timers. The system over here is way more dynamic, that the price changes in real time and suppliers have to respond in real time. So they’ve created much more complicated energy tariffs.”
[ Post-Brexit, the UK’s different economic direction to the Republic is underlinedOpens in new window ]
That makes things more complicated for customers trying to charge their electric cars at the best – ie the cheapest – time. This is where the smart car chargers can come into their own.
Ohme partners with Octopus Power, for example, to smart charge electric cars at the optimum time during the day or night, at a time when green energy generation is at its highest. So while the cheapest time on paper might be the five hours at night, when the company detects over-supply on the grid outside those offpeak hours, it can push that power to charge your electric vehicle and still charge you the lower rate.
The Octopus deal has been in place for some time, but more are being added. In Northern Ireland, the company has partnered with Click Energy to help drivers access cheaper charging.
Watson is confident that the Irish market will continue to develop in a similar way, despite the public reluctance to embrace smart meters and plans.
“There’s plenty organic growth just in terms of selling boxes and units; in Ireland’s EVs are something like 20-odd per cent and they’re going to continue to grow to 40, 50, 60 per cent. That’s a reasonable growth in home charging. However, as more and more EVs are on the grid, their potential to help balance the load in Ireland is massive and to reduce the imbalance costs or wastage that renewables bring to the grid. The next phase of growth in the business is, once we have a large enough installed base, helping to drive and manage that grid and provide effectively those grid services.”
The first phase of the process – getting its name out there, getting the home chargers installed – is already well under way. The next focus is expanding the business beyond the UK and Ireland, with France, Italy and Spain on the cards. Ohme already has what Watson describes as a “decent presence” in Belgium.
“In the second half of this year as well as of the first half of next year, we’re focusing on expanding into Europe,” he says. “That’s where our growth in our business will come. But it starts with the selling of the hardware and where we use various different USPs to sell our hardware.”
The company’s expansion will inevitably mean further growth in numbers; it already employs more than 120 people.
In his spare time, Watson co-owns and runs an orchard with his cousin Barry Walsh, in Co Cork. Killahora Orchards has grown from a small project to a significant enterprise, producing its own cider, ice wine and other drinks from trees on the land.
“It was one of those hobbies that got out of control,” says Watson. “It started off as only 20 trees, we said we would go to 100; now there [are] a couple of thousand trees down there.”
The orchard was a long-time passion of Watson’s, who said he has been growing trees from seed since his childhood. Back then, he planted them on family-owned land, but he wanted to explore that childhood passion further.
Everyone comes everyone comes along and helps, it’s great craic
— David Watson
“When I did buy the lands, I wanted to grow something on it and you can’t really grow grapes in Cork – or maybe you can now with climate change. We started planting some apple trees, I had a decent passion for looking at the varieties and started collecting a lot of specialist varieties for cider from all over the world,” he says. “Once we had the apples, we started to experiment; I was a chemist and he was a chemical engineer, so between the two of us we figured out how to get to make some alcohol and turned out we did a reasonably good job at it.”
Their products have racked up several awards, including the Blas na hÉireann award for its Johnny Fall Down Bittersweet cider, the Irish Drink Award from the Irish Food and Writers Guild for its Rare Apple Ice Wine, and most recently the Euro-Toques 2023 artisan award for the same product.
It is a family business. Watson’s late father, Tim, managed the orchards, helping to plant 1,000 fruit trees at the Cork property. Watson’s wife Kate has also come on board, getting Kilahora’s drinks into establishments at home and abroad, including Michelin-starred restaurants Aimsir, Chapter One, Ox, Ichigo Ichie and Fota Island Resort’s Cove.
During the autumn months, Watson says, the picking and pressing of apples is a family occasion, with everyone pitching in. “Everyone comes everyone comes along and helps, it’s great craic.”
However, as far as businesses go, Ohme remains the priority – for now.
“I think it’s quite obvious now when you start to look around the world, what you have when you see how climate is changing and the negative impact that will be,” he says. “We need to actually do some things. We’ll be able to build a business that actually can give individuals power and control be able to drive cleaner trucks and cars, and also save money and feel a bit better about it.”
What about the possibility that hydrogen-powered cars will take over from electric ones in the future? Watson is sceptical, at least when it comes to cars.
In the meantime, battery technology is improving, getting lighter and more efficient. “That helps us because people will do more charging at work and at home rather than needing to go to a destination charger,” says Watson. “That’s positive for our business and it’s positive for the grid because the bigger the batteries are and the more energy they can take when there’s too much wind on the grid, the more flexibility they provide.”
Profile
Name: David Watson
Job: Chief executive of Ohme
Age: 48
Married to Kate, with children
Something you would expect: He is passionate about helping to solve the energy problems facing the country
Something that might surprise you: He has developed an award-winning ice wine at his side hustle, Kilahora Orchards
