Dr. Irene Di Martino

As it aims to become the world’s first energy transition supermajor, Amp is securing its position as one of the leading developers of utility-scale battery electricity solutions. The organisation is a response to one of the most significant developments of our time and is driven by the increasing demand for renewable energy and the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), as the world transitions away from fossil fuels. 

Irene Di Martino, Executive Vice President of Amp, holds over 20 years of experience in the energy sector and has since been instrumental in developing Amp’s digital energy business, Amp X. 

Holding an industrially-sponsored PhD in Metallurgy, Di Martino worked as Key Technical Expert at Engie. Before this, she was involved in technology developments to support the defence sector. After a spell with the World Energy Council authoring a report on blockchain, the focus of her career shifted to the digital energy space. 

Since 2019, she has led the Amp X business to deliver a disruptive grid edge digital platform that can help unlock flexibility at a very large scale, ultimately enabling the transition towards a fully transactive grid where every end user can actively participate to the provision of system flexibility and access new revenue streams, within a fully decarbonised system. 

“The strategy of Amp X is, first of all, to deliver value for Amp assets and that happens through the optimisation of the dispatch of storage assets in different markets around the world,” Di Martino says. 

Di Martino’s work is also centred around the optimisation of increasingly-decentralised energy grids where assets can be managed through the appropriate life management approach and the use of predictive maintenance of infrastructure for cost-saving purposes. She also refers to Amp X as a ‘disruptive player’ “because we’ve been developing a platform that caters for a number of interoperable solutions through the same one software platform”. 

“[Instead of] focusing on just a single point solution or a specific vertical, we have been developing a number of solutions that are strategic and they provide a much greater value for different stakeholders.”

Di Martino also told us about the developments and trends that she expects to see over the next 12 months. 

“The next 12 to 18 months are going to be really exciting for Amp X, because we are going to see the on-grid deployment of our smart transformer ‒ first of its kind ‒ but also the continued development of our behind-the-meter technology, which has already been rolled out across a number of consumers in the UK within the Energy Systems Catapult’s Living Lab. Amp X will also expand its presence  into other strategic markets around the world.”

Following the successful application of its digital grid solutions, the firm is now looking to enhance its services to further its support for Amp customers and end consumers. 

“We are also going to see the expansion of our already-operational Virtual Power Plant solution, not only for Amp assets where it’s currently in commercial operation, but also for third parties.”

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