EnergyOMNI x 2025 Energy Taiwan｜"Doing What Taiwan Does Best" : From Surveillance Software to Energy Data Platforms on a Neutral Path_thingnario

thingnario, CEO Cardy Huang

Taiwan has long excelled in manufacturing and semiconductors, yet one enduring question remains: where lies the nation's "core software engineering"? thingnario CEO Cardy Huang offers a forward-looking answer rooted in Taiwan's industrial structure and the global energy transition. By building a "B2B × IoT × AI platform, "he aims to chart a software path uniquely suited to Taiwan's strengths.

"I've always believed that Taiwan's best positioning in software lies in B2B, and it must integrate with physical devices," said Huang. "Our home market is small, but our hardware supply chain and industrial computing capabilities are world-class. If we can layer standardized applications atop existing infrastructure, we have a real chance to make software a global business."

From Video Surveillance to Energy: Capturing the Window of Industrial Transformation

With a background in computer science, Cardy Huang's first entrepreneurial venture focused on video surveillance backend software—for recording, analytics, and management. "At that time, the shift from analog to digital was a clear industry turning point," Huang recalled. "My approach was pragmatic: I studied the financial reports of listed companies, identified targets with high gross profit, strong software components, and four consecutive years of growth. Then I quickly built a prototype and took it to major trade shows in the U.S., U.K., and Taiwan to listen to the market's voice."

"Whenever an industry is undergoing transformation, there's always a new opening for software to play a role. Since we don't come from a traditional information security background, we have to compensate with speed and market validation," said Cardy Huang.

This mindset later evolved into his long-considered vision for an IoT platform. "I wanted to build a B2B IoT platform that can perform cross-vertical data collection from a large number of devices, enabling real-time processing and intelligent analytics. Then, by standardizing the platform, deployment could be as easy as opening an account." Around 2017, thingnario applied this concept—entering solar PV monitoring on one hand, while partnering with major plastic injection equipment manufacturers to create smart manufacturing IoT solutions on the other.

After running both business lines in parallel for over a year, Huang made a strategic choice.

"The manufacturing side had too much process variation and insufficient standardization. Every factory required customization, and the domain knowledge barrier was high. From a SaaS perspective, the replication cost was steep and the sales cycle long. In contrast, the logic behind energy generation, trading, and consumption is far more consistent worldwide, making the products easier to scale and expand globally."

He decided to concentrate resources on the energy sector—starting from generation, particularly solar, and extending into power trading and consumption. By building a unified energy data platform as the foundation, thingnario could develop standardized applications tailored to different market roles atop the same core architectures.

thingnario PHOTON System assist China Steel Corporation to manage Chung Hung Steel's Lukang Solar Power plant

Plugging into the Grid: From DERMS to Behind-the-Meter Energy Storage

Speaking about a pivotal milestone, Cardy Huang was candid: "DREAMS—Taiwan Power Company's renewable energy management platform—marked a major turning point in how we deepened our understanding and expanded our capabilities."

Around 2020, when Taipower launched the DREAMS pilot project, thingnario was invited to assist with the technical closure phase. From the second phase onward, the company took the lead in software design, collaborating closely with partners such as Chunghwa Telecom to bring the system to fruition.

DREAMS is Taiwan's counterpart to what is internationally known as a DERMS (Distributed Energy Resources Management System)—a platform designed to monitor and control distributed energy resources across the grid, ensuring voltage and frequency stability.

"Renewable energy is decentralized and intermittent—power is generated on factory rooftops and consumed right below them. This creates new challenges like voltage rise and reduced system inertia. DERMS is the essential digital foundation for modern distribution grids. In Taiwan, we added the "R" to make it DREAMS, but the spirit remains the same."

Through its work on DREAMS, thingnario effectively plugged into the grid at the software layer. Positioned as a pure software and third-party neutral provider, the company can serve a wide range of industry players and integrate massive, heterogeneous data streams. This creates a powerful flywheel effect: the more neutral it stays, the more projects it serves, the more data it gathers—strengthening the platform, enhancing AI capabilities, and accelerating reputation and expansion.

"Many energy companies have software," said Cardy Huang, "but most are vertically integrated. They develop their own projects, handle EPC (Engineering、Procurement、Construction) and O&M (Operation and Maintenance), and use software mainly for internal management. Our 100% revenue comes from software sales and services. We don't compete with clients for projects, which means we can dedicate all our resources to software productization, standardization, and long-term operability."

thingnario's platform has also expanded from the generation side to the consumption side, covering behind-the-meter (BTM) storage, energy efficiency optimization, and green power procurement management. Even high-load systems like EV chargers are now integrated into the DREAMS platform, with BTM storage emerging as a natural solution for businesses seeking peak-shaving, cost optimization, and greater energy resilience. Huang noted that this trend is only beginning to take shape—not just in Taiwan, but also across Southeast Asia and Japan, setting the stage for broader deployment of microgrids and virtual power plants (VPPs).

"Imagine a single site," said Cardy Huang. "It has rooftop solar, BTM storage, EV chargers, and backup generators. Once that site can self-balance and dispatch energy internally, and then connect with other sites in an industrial park, it naturally evolves toward community- or city-level energy collaboration. This isn't a slogan—it’s the result of data, control, and market mechanisms maturing together."

thingnario EnMS Energy Management System

Expanding Abroad and Building Partnerships: Turning Software Standardization into Global Competitiveness

thingnario began expanding overseas even before the pandemic, and now operates projects in ten countries, with particularly strong footprints in Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines. The company also established a Japanese subsidiary last year.

"Our criteria for entering a market are simple," Huang explained. "First, the clarity of policy and regulation; second, whether we can quickly achieve compliance and deliver standardized solutions."

In Southeast Asia, most markets follow a "self-consumption, no export" rule—factories must suppress any excess solar generation instead of feeding it back to the grid. This requires real-time load tracking and control, a capability thingnario productized five years ago. The company has since secured equipment certification in Thailand and implemented solutions in Malaysia and the Philippines.

In Japan, the challenge is "output control," where utilities predefine allowable generation ratios hours or days in advance—a concept closely aligned with DERMS logic. thingnario has partnered with local equipment providers to pass the country's stringent compliance tests.

"Regulations are a one-time barrier," Huang noted. "Once cleared, we can offer consistent, compliant software and services within that region. Because the underlying demand logic—whether in generation asset management, power trading, or consumption optimization—is highly universal, our platform can remain standardized with minimal localization."

thingnario's overseas expansion goes hand in hand with its growing partner ecosystem. At this year's Energy Taiwan, the company not only showcased its energy management platform software, but also presented successful cross-sector case studies developed with its clients and partners. Through joint presentations, thingnario highlighted the strength of a neutral, collaborative platform that accelerates learning and innovation across industries.

"Our goal is to let visitors experience the best interoperable solutions in one booth," said Huang. "It reflects our role—pure software, no engineering, partner-driven integration—turning complex energy systems into digital products that are scalable, sustainable, and operationally ready."

thingnario Ecosystem

Neutrality at The Core　Data as The Engine

Cardy Huang describes the energy transition as a "long, steady climb"—a business shaped by short-term policy and market cycles but driven by an unshakable long-term trend. While Taiwan's solar market has cooled and many EPCs are seeking new directions, thingnario has continued to strengthen its foundation: expanding from generation to consumption, sustaining overseas growth, and deepening its core energy data platform.

"Neutrality allows us to serve more clients; more clients bring more data; more data strengthens our platform and AI, forming a virtuous cycle, "Huang explained. "We focus on software, standardizing everything that can be standardized, and leave the rest to our ecosystem partners. That, to me, is the core engineering of Taiwan's software strength."