Ardian, a world leading investor in renewable energy, has partnered with leading software-as-a-service firms Greenbyte and Pexapark on a major upgrade to its digital asset management systems for its 3.5-GW-plus renewable energy portfolio.
Working directly with the teams at Greenbyte — a software platform designed to optimize renewable energy production across global portfolios — and Pexapark — a business that sets out to evolve the “operating system” for post-subsidy renewable energy management — Ardian Infrastructure has set out to implement a future-proof end-to-end renewable energy monitoring online platform that will help it and the management teams of its renewable platforms to create additional value and monitor technical and market risks in tandem.
These risk management goals are growing in significance and urgency for investors and operators as the renewables sector worldwide transitions into a new phase of operation; 10 years ago, most projects benefited from long-term subsidies. Today, the removal of subsidies across many markets means asset revenues and price risk must be actively managed through power purchase agreements (PPAs) and other revenue hedging mechanisms.
“Increasing exposure to the volatility of the ‘merchant’ power market is driving a fundamental shift in the way we look at and manage our portfolio for our investors,” said Mathias Burghardt, Head of Ardian Infrastructure. “On the one hand, we need to place greater emphasis on optimizing production to extract as many megawatt hours of clean power as possible from our assets. On the other, we must build our energy sales and risk management best-in-class expertise to control and hedge our financial exposure and stay on top of market dynamics to capture the best windows of opportunity.”
As Ardian continues to expand its renewables portfolio across Europe, the U.S., and Latin America, seeking further investment opportunities in its core markets while considering their transition out of subsidies, Ardian Infrastructure with its digital and data science team has taken a pioneering approach to digitizing its operating models.
By integrating Greenbyte’s asset monitoring and management platform, the Ardian Infrastructure team aims at being able to oversee and benchmark technical performance across its portfolio, covering three markets in Europe, five markets in the U.S., and two in Latin America.
“Full transparency on asset performance is a hugely powerful tool, and Greenbyte gives Ardian and its management teams a means of creating accountability, not only with its own investors, but also with regional operations & maintenance (O&M) teams and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs),” said Jonas Corné, CEO, Greenbyte. “This data will help Ardian incentivize performance and value creation activities across the portfolio, as well as hold other parties to account during contractual negotiations.”
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