EthosPowerAILNG2012–2016
Asia Pacific LNG (APLNG)
I specified 192 lithium (LiFePO4) 48VDC systems with BMS for APLNG, including thermal modelling for high-temperature cabinet environments.
192× 48VDC LiFePO4 systems
Origin Energy·Queensland, Australia
Your customer has already done the sizing.
A tender arrives with your client's own IEEE 485 battery sizing, schematics and BOM attached. They authored almost everything they need themselves, using their favourite LLM, thus eroding the value your firm once added.
This is the new reality: your customers have changed and so must your strategy. Because basic services are becoming commoditised by AI, organisations must elevate their value — from supplier to trusted consultant and stakeholder in their customers' success.
I help firms that specify, supply or commission battery-backed power decide what to sell once that gap has gone, and I build the tools myself: engineering since 1987, standby DC power since 1992, AI platforms in production since 2024, in the same person. See ebatt.ai for one that is live.
A tender arrives with your client's own IEEE 485 battery sizing, schematics and BOM attached, authored with their favourite LLM, eroding the value your firm once added.
Because basic services are becoming commoditised by AI, organisations must elevate their value — from supplier to trusted consultant. I help firms that supply battery-backed power decide what to sell once that gap has gone, and I build the tools myself. See ebatt.ai for one that is live.
Argument after Maxim Afanasyev, Google Cloud. The evidence, and its limits, are on the approach page; the argument in full is in Your Customers Are Smarter.
Business change first, organisational change second, technology third
Every example on this site makes a person faster or better informed; none removes one
You own the code, it runs on your infrastructure, and you deal with the engineer who wrote it
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Built by an Engineer
Engineering Since
1987
TVNZ, ABB, ExxonMobil, and Pacific Islands projects
ABB
Global Projects Team
DC and AC UPS Systems Specialist
2012–2016 · US$500M+/yr scope
Origin Energy / ConocoPhillips
APLNG
192 × 48 V DC lithium battery systems · cabinets above 65 °C
UNEP / Stockholm Convention
Pacific Islands
Cook Islands and Kiribati consultant
eBatt.ai
IEEE 485
Sizing and EN 50272-2 venting free; quoting engine live
Afanasyev's three criteria
Three capabilities, one head
He is emphatic that three specialists in a room will not substitute. The record below is for checking, not admiring; the dates are on the about page.
How the business makes money
His first criterion: deep knowledge of how the business actually makes money.
Company director since 1996, with the firm's first ERP deployed the same year and administered since. Doubled Magellan Powertronics' highest annual sales in 2011/12; won and kept period contracts with Transgrid, Essential Energy, Energy Australia and Ausgrid.
Redesigning workflows, winning adoption
His second: the transformation skill to redesign a workflow and get people to use it.
B.Ed and Cert IV trainer. Wrote and delivered UPS and battery courses to 42 ABB business units worldwide, coached a four-engineer hybrid-power unit from tender to commissioning, and trained 30 AirServices Australia field engineers.
Enough technology for sound architecture
His third, and the one he calls minor: broad technology awareness.
ABB's sole global DC/AC UPS specialist, 2012–2016, across a US$500M-a-year project scope. Internet infrastructure since 1995. ethospower.ai and ebatt.ai built and running in production since 2024.
How I work
A connections engineer now gets an AI shortlist of compliant protection equipment in minutes, and a storage developer compares vendors on price, compliance and lead time before any salesperson knows they are looking. That is the change worth designing for, and the order of the work follows from it: business change first, the people second, the technology third.
Sequence
Business change first
The tender arrives with the client's own sizing already attached. The first question is not which tool to buy but what the firm sells once the sizing is free; everything else is downstream of that answer.
Incentives
Then the people
A senior engineer will not help build the thing that answers her question without her unless she has been told, in advance, what she is worth afterwards. Afanasyev reads a chief executive who cuts twenty per cent and blames AI as advertising a failed business model. So do I.
Tooling
Technology third, and minor
Afanasyev's father kept a 386 in the corner of his office and moved it to the front of the desk when head office visited; the paper process around it had not changed. Software dropped into an unchanged workflow costs time. Fix the intake first.
What stays scarce
Sell the judgement
How installations actually degrade, which network operator is enforcing which edition of AS/NZS 4777.2, whether a UL 9540A report covers the configuration being sold: no datasheet contains it and no scraper will find it, and it becomes the only thing left worth money.
The stack
Every showcase on this site runs on software I host myself, 32 open-source platforms with a section and an architecture diagram each, and four of them carry most of the work: the local model server, the vector store, the graph, and the workflow engine that ties the three together. The rest are on the page.
See the whole stack →Reference Projects
Engineering Heritage
Before AI, I built power systems for the world's most demanding environments. This experience shapes everything I create.
LNG2012–2016
ExxonMobil Longford Brownfield and Greenfield
I project-engineered 1+1 redundant 110 V DC systems for explosion-proof transportable switch-rooms at ExxonMobil's Longford plants, including Ex d-rated battery isolators with remote trip, and negotiated the mid-project re-sizings and variations.
Zone 1hazardous-area rated
ExxonMobil·Victoria, Australia
Utilities2012–2016
ABB Global Project Execution Team
I was ABB's sole DC/AC UPS Systems Specialist — responsible for every standby power design across ABB's worldwide project wins. Battery qualification across VRLA, LiFePO4 and NiCd; BMS and thermal verification.
US$500Mannual scope
ABB (global)·Worldwide
Off-Grid2018–2019
UNEP Stockholm Convention — Cook Islands & Kiribati
I delivered UNEP-funded consulting and training for two Pacific Island environment ministries on Stockholm Convention NIPs — POPs management, renewable energy programme reporting, on-island training.
2national environment ministries
Cook Islands National Environment Service·Cook Islands & Kiribati
Aviation2009–2010
Airservices Australia — Field Engineer Training
I wrote and delivered the operation-and-maintenance training on microprocessor-controlled thyristor battery chargers, and lithium battery technology, for all 30 Airservices Australia field service engineers.
30field service engineers trained
Airservices Australia·Australia-wide
AI Platform2018-2020
Powerbox Australia — Hybrid Power Systems Design and Build Business Unit
I established a new hybrid power business unit, built the IEEE 485 cloud sizing tool, and delivered prompt engineering training to the team. Strategy, coaching, tooling, O&M manuals — full zero-to-one stand-up.
4engineers coached + tools shipped
Powerbox Australia·Sydney, Australia
AI Platform2024–present
ethospower.ai — AI-Powered Consulting Platform
I designed, built and deployed this site — Next.js 15 / Cloudflare Workers with a RAG knowledge assistant over 2,400+ documents, a 6-agent development pipeline, and 15+ MCP integrations.
2,400+documents in RAG index
EthosPower Associates·Nelson, New Zealand
AI Platform2025–present
ebatt.ai — AI Battery Design & Compliance Platform
I built an IEEE 485 battery sizing tool and EN 50272-2 hydrogen venting calculator on Cloudflare Workers / D1 / R2, with Stripe payments and multi-tenant deployment. Standby DC power engineering since 1992, as software.
IEEE 485+ EN 50272-2 compliant
EthosPower Associates·Nelson, New Zealand
Want to talk?
A 30-minute call about what your firm sells once the customer has done the sizing. No slides.