From commercial HVAC to coordinated “swarm intelligence”
Encycle is an energy-technology company with origins in Toronto, developing software that helps buildings use less energy and respond more flexibly to the power grid.
The company frames its approach as tapping into “swarm intelligence”: instead of treating each rooftop unit or chiller as a standalone machine, Encycle coordinates them as a group — much like natural systems where collective behaviour achieves stability and efficiency without a central controller.
In practical terms, that means applying lightweight machine learning to the HVAC equipment organisations already own, rather than pushing for cloud-heavy retrofits or major hardware replacements.
What they do & why it matters
Encycle focuses on commercial and industrial estates where HVAC is the largest controllable load — often 30–40% of total energy use.
- Swarm Logic®: The core software synchronises how multiple HVAC units start, stop, and modulate, reducing peak demand and avoiding wasteful overlap.
- Energy efficiency at scale: Large chains (retail, logistics, industrial) can deploy this across entire portfolios to see consistent savings.
- Grid-interactive buildings: By coordinating loads, buildings become more responsive to utility programmes and demand-response events — easing pressure on the grid and reducing carbon intensity.
Funding, traction and outlook
Encycle reports that customers typically see 10–20% reductions in HVAC energy costs, alongside carbon reductions and deferred equipment stress. The company continues to expand into sectors where reliability and operational scale are priorities.
Buildings already have distributed intelligence embedded in their machines. When those machines start acting more like a coordinated swarm, efficiency becomes a property of the system.
