Selected by 7 of the world’s leading utilities: Manual.to in the Free Electrons 2026 Top 30

Selected by 7 of the world's leading utilities.

Together, they serve more than 82 million customers across four continents. In May 2026, they chose Manual.to for the Top 30 of Free Electrons, the largest open innovation program in the energy sector.

The seven partners are CLP (Hong Kong), EDP (Portugal), E.ON (Germany), ESB (Ireland), Hydro-Québec (Canada), Origin Energy (Australia) and PPC (Greece). They operate transmission grids, distribution networks, renewable assets and generation plants on four continents. They are not investors looking for the next unicorn. They are operators looking for solutions to problems they cannot solve internally fast enough.

This is the story of why they picked Manual.to.

See Manual.to in action →

What Free Electrons is

Free Electrons describes itself as the world's largest open innovation program focused on bringing disruptive energy innovations to life. It is not a typical accelerator. It is a pilot-focused program designed to connect startups directly with global utility leaders to co-design solutions and pilot them on real assets.

The program is now in its tenth edition. Each year, hundreds of startups from across the globe apply. The 2026 cohort drew a record number of applications. Sixty were selected for the Pitch Event in April. Thirty advance to the Bootcamp. Fifteen reach the Master Module. The Grand Finale, in November in Montréal, names one Startup of the Year.

The structure matters because it filters for one specific quality: pilot readiness. Utilities are not looking for a flashy demo. They are looking for technology that can deploy inside critical infrastructure, on regulated assets, with operational teams who do not have time to test something that will not survive contact with the field.

The four-stage program

Manual.to currently sits in the Top 30. The Bootcamp in Lisbon is the next stage: face-to-face working sessions with the utility partners to shape concrete pilot opportunities.

Why these seven utilities matter

The Free Electrons utility consortium is not a random sample of the energy sector. Each partner brings a specific operational reality.

CLP (China Light and Power, Hong Kong) operates electricity businesses across the Asia-Pacific region, including generation, transmission and retail. It is one of the largest investor-owned utilities in Asia.

EDP (Energias de Portugal) is one of the largest European energy operators, with significant presence in Iberia, Brazil and renewable generation worldwide.

E.ON is one of Europe's largest investor-owned utilities, headquartered in Germany, operating distribution networks and customer-facing energy services across multiple European markets.

ESB (Electricity Supply Board) is the Irish state-owned electricity utility, responsible for generation, transmission, distribution and supply on the island of Ireland.

Hydro-Québec is one of the world's largest hydroelectric producers, serving Québec and exporting significant volumes of electricity to neighbouring North American markets.

Origin Energy is one of Australia's largest integrated energy companies, with generation, retail and exploration operations across the country.

PPC (Public Power Corporation) is the dominant electricity utility in Greece, with operations spanning generation, transmission and distribution.

Different continents. Different regulatory regimes. Different mixes of generation, distribution and retail. One shared problem: how to transfer the operational knowledge held by experienced engineers, technicians and field workers to a workforce that is being renewed at an unprecedented pace.

What we are bringing to them

Manual.to does one thing. The platform helps industrial and infrastructure organisations capture the operational know-how that lives in their experienced people, and put it directly in the hands of the workers who need it. An operator films a task on a smartphone. AI converts the video into a structured, multilingual, step-by-step instruction. A QR code on the asset or workstation puts it one scan away from any worker, in any of 200+ languages, on any device.

For an energy utility, this addresses three converging pressures that no single legacy tool was designed to handle.

Workforce renewal. Around 26% of the European industrial workforce will reach retirement age by 2030, according to JOLTS data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. In some utilities, the proportion of staff with 30+ years of tenure is higher still. Each departure takes 15 to 25 years of operational expertise. Paper SOPs do not capture it. Classroom training does not transfer it.

Multilingual operations. Critical infrastructure increasingly relies on multi-country teams and contractors operating on the same assets. Professional translation of procedures into multiple languages is slow, resource-intensive, and does not scale across hundreds of SOPs.

Safety and compliance. Utilities operate under heavy regulatory scrutiny. ISO 9001, ISO 45001, country-specific grid codes, internal safety standards. Audit trails are not optional. Paper-based documentation is increasingly seen by regulators as a structural risk.

The Manual.to thesis

"Energy companies are spending billions on new infrastructure. The knowledge to operate it still lives in people's heads. Guess which problem is growing faster."

— Jorim Rademaker, CEO and co-founder of Manual.to

Knowledge should flow like electricity. Captured at the source, structured by AI, distributed at the point of use, kept alive by closed-loop feedback from the field. In a transmission system operator or a generation utility, that is not a metaphor. It is the operational discipline the entire sector already applies to electrons, applied to know-how.

That is what Manual.to has been building from Ghent since 2016. And that is what the Free Electrons jury, drawn from across the seven utility partners, recognised in the 2026 selection.

A second recognition in the energy sector in six months

Manual.to's selection for the Free Electrons Top 30 is not the company's first international validation in the energy and utilities sector. In December 2025, Manual.to was named global winner of the Elia Group Open Innovation Challenge, selected from 238 startups across 41 countries by a jury composed of C-level operational and HR leaders from Elia Group, 50Hertz, Elia Transmission Belgium, SET Ventures and Redia.

Read the Elia Group partnership story →

Two distinct juries, in two different programs, six months apart, with no overlapping members. Both selected Manual.to for the same fundamental reason: the operational knowledge problem in critical infrastructure has reached a tipping point, and the existing toolset is not solving it.

And in May 2026, a third

Two days after the Free Electrons Top 30 announcement, Manual.to was selected for the seventh cohort of the 100+ Accelerator, the industrial innovation programme jointly run by AB InBev, The Coca-Cola Company, Colgate-Palmolive, Danone, Mondelēz International and Unilever. Manual.to was the only Belgian company in a cohort of 45 startups picked from nearly 3,000 applicants across 40+ countries.

Read the 100+ Accelerator announcement →

Three recognitions across two industrial verticals, from three independent juries, in six months. A pattern is emerging.

What happens next

The next stage of Free Electrons is the Bootcamp in Lisbon, June 22-25, 2026. Face-to-face working sessions with the seven utility partners, focused on shaping pilot opportunities. Then the Master Module in London in September, where the Top 15 align on pilot scope and success criteria. Then the Grand Finale in Montréal in November.

The intention is not to win a stage. The intention is to leave the program with concrete pilot agreements in the field, on real assets, with utilities that have decided Manual.to is part of how they manage their workforce transition.

Built in Ghent, recognised across critical industries

Manual.to was founded in Ghent in 2016 by Jorim Rademaker. The platform helps industrial and infrastructure organisations capture, structure and share operational know-how using step-based guidance that combines video, images and multilingual text, accessible on any device via a QR code. Current customers include Barilla, CEVA Logistics, Lonza, Aperam, Procter & Gamble, ABB, Dupont and G4S. More than 100,000 workers worldwide use the platform.

The company is recognised by Deloitte as one of the fastest-growing technology companies in EMEA and is a Microsoft Partner.