Skyfri: maximising production and reducing cost for a greener (and solar) future
Why All Iron Ventures has partnered with Norway-based Skyfri, the most advanced operating platform for solar assets
By Jaume Ayats, on behalf of the All Iron Ventures team
☀️ The sun is shining brighter and brighter on the renewable energy industry, and we’re excited to share our latest investment in the climate space: Skyfri! Let’s dig into it.
The gap between the solar plans’ forecasted/ actual performance
The adoption of renewable energies, especially solar and wind, has exploded over the last ten years, driven by: (1) more competitive cost of energy production vs traditional energy sources, (2) macro events affecting energy security and (3) the imperative need to decarbonise the grid as one of the biggest levers to tackle climate change (electricity generation accounts for 25%+ of carbon emissions).
While the outlook for the solar and wind industry continues to be strong as the drivers mentioned above will persist, solar assets have been consistently underperforming (plants are underperforming by 6%-10%+ vs their expected performance). Investors and asset managers must close the gap between their forecasted and actual performance, especially as solar and wind subsidies start being phased out.
According to experts, one of the main reasons for the delta between initial performance estimates and actual performance is the complexity and need for more sophistication around Operation and Maintenance (O&M) processes.
Therefore, operational efficiency is critical to maximizing an asset’s return on investment, but managing a multi-asset portfolio is challenging, and most asset managers remain in the dark about the performance of their assets. Reduced energy production, unexpected downtime, broken components, continuous repair needs, accidents, and operational incidents are all challenges affecting photovoltaic plants’ economics.
The lack of corrective operations and a maintenance platform means the asset manager needs to incur higher operational costs without having visibility on performance improvements, which all directly affect an asset’s return on investment.
Here is where Skyfri comes into play.
A stellar team tackling a complex problem
Petter and Murshid, co-CEOs of Skyfri, felt the pain of operating solar assets when they IPO’d Norsk Solar, an independent power provider working in the C&I space. To solve their needs, they assembled a stellar team of industry experts and built the world’s leading intelligent O&M platform.
Skyfri has a team of around 100 people and is growing rapidly through targeted acquisitions. The company, founded in Oslo in 2020, leverages data from multiple sources (including their proprietary SCADA system, in case the plant does not have one already) to identify when, where and why performance issues are happening. This allows asset managers to move from “scheduled maintenance” to reactive maintenance and, ultimately, predictive maintenance.
The Norwegian startup is currently working on more than 4.7 GW of solar assets, which helps improve performance by up to 5%-6%. Skyfri’s proven impact led them to work with some leading asset management companies.
Why All Iron Ventures is partnering with Skyfri
We are incredibly excited to partner with Skyfri’s team to tackle a very concrete and relevant issue within a critical market that is growing exponentially! To summarise, our conviction in Skyfri comes from:
- The solar and wind power market continues to grow as regulatory and environmental pressures to reduce emissions increase (11% CAGR for the next 30 years, 20% over the next ten years).
- A solid product: with asset owners seeing their returns affected by inadequate plant operations, Skyfri solves a clear pain point for solar plant operators by improving the efficiency of their assets.
- A strong performance: they are already working with some of the largest IPPs and asset managers
- With around 40 years of combined experience in the solar and broader renewable energy sector, Skyfri’s team brings a wealth of knowledge to the company and builds a robust foundation for further expansion.
Stay tuned for updates on our exciting journey towards a greener and solar-powered future! We can’t wait to see what’s in store 🙌🏽
🧡 Thanks for reading! If you have enjoyed this story, spread the word! You can follow us at All Iron Ventures on Linkedin and Twitter.
Sources:
