5 Minutes With Nam

Next up in our 5 Minutes With series is Nam, Co-Founder of OptiGrid. When he’s not discussing optimisation strategies, he’s building models and systems that translate the complexity of the electricity market into solutions for batteries. ⚡🔋👇

🔹What’s your role at OptiGrid and what does a typical day look like for you?

At OptiGrid I lead the technical team. My work sits at the intersection of energy markets, optimisation and software engineering. As much as I am involved in setting the product strategy, I enjoy coding and spend a good amount of time building models, developing features, and prototyping new ideas.

🔹As a co-founder, what part of OptiGrid’s mission excites you the most and why?

What excites me most is to make batteries smarter market participants. Batteries will play a huge role in supporting renewable energy, but their value depends on how intelligently they operate. Not all optimisation solutions in the market deliver the performance their asset owners expect, and many are sub-optimal when benchmarked against OptiGrid.

🔹What’s one thing about building OptiGrid that has surprised you along the way?

One thing that surprised me is how wide the gap is between a great model on paper and something that actually works in the real world. During my PhD, I could develop mathematically sound models in weeks. Turning that into a platform that handles messy real-world data and integrates with assets can take months of engineering. That experience shapes how I think when building at OptiGrid: monitoring, testing and designing systems to recover from issues quickly are just as important as the models themselves.

🔹 If you could redesign one thing to support batteries in the NEM, what would it be?

The intelligence and usability of the tools that support batteries. A big part of what I’m doing at OptiGrid is to bring forecasting, optimisation, and market insights together in a way that is practical and easy to use. I’d like to support traders with tools that make it easy for them to test strategies, understand market signals and to adapt to new conditions quickly.

🔹What is an interesting country that your career has taken you to and why was it interesting?

Coming to Australia was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I came with the simple goal of studying my bachelor’s degree, but it quickly turned into something much bigger. That journey took me through a PhD and into working on real-world problems in energy and technology. It’s been incredibly rewarding to go from arriving with just a passion for tech to now leading a team working on these challenges every day.