The solar industry’s growing problem is data risk, a challenging issue that arises from a chain of factors. Utility-scale solar’s rapid global growth has made qualified designers and engineers scarce, growing developers’ use of software to automate tasks in design and ongoing operations. Yet data sources for that software, particularly in Europe, are in older formats, such as PDFs and hard copy records. And most solar software platforms were designed independently of each other, built to automate only a handful of tasks.
As a result, developers must now use as many as 70 different data sets, most with data fields that must be manually matched when moving from one software platform to the next. These multiple, time-consuming and customized transfers inevitably degrade data quality, creating data risk. Despite considerable resources already invested in the solar market, the solar engineering industry lacks the digitization needed to keep pace with demand.
Is in this context that PVcase, a global leader in solar project design software, announced it has secured a joint investment of €89 million, bringing the company’s total funding to over €109 million. Highland Europe, Energize and existing investor Elephant all participated in the round.
“Data risk is a technical problem that could become an industry-wide constraint,” said PVcase CEO David Trainavicius. “With this investment, we can develop an end-to-end software solution that removes a significant barrier to solar’s global growth by saving time and cutting costs for developers.”
Founded in 2017, PVcase aims to cover every step in the design and operations process in a single platform and this investment comes on the heels of the company’s recent acquisition of solar siting leader Anderson Optimization. The two platforms’ data fields have already been matched, enabling transfer with a few mouse clicks. PVcase also introduced Anderson Optimization software to the European market, first covering Germany, Spain and the UK. PVcase estimates that European developers will be able to cut their project design process from weeks to roughly 20 minutes.
“Good, streamlined data across the design and construction lifecycle is the fuel we need to keep the renewable energy transition moving toward a cleaner future. We need to advance solar operations fully into the digital age by reducing data risk. We’re making this investment so PVcase can lead the industry to a solution,” said Irena Goldenberg, Partner at Highland Europe.
“The utility-scale solar industry is poised for explosive global growth in the coming years, yet it currently lacks the digital tools needed to meet the demand of the market,” said John Tough, managing partner of Energize Ventures and now a member of the PVcase board of directors. “Software solutions aimed at automating solar workflows and increasing data integrity are required for the market to become profitable and scalable. After getting to know the PVcase team, product and customers over the last two years, Energize is confident that PVcase is the software the industry needs to unlock its growth potential.”
All three investment funds said they invested in PVcase because its strong financial performance has positioned it to acquire other software platforms in pursuit of its long-term goal of being a one-stop solution for the solar engineering community.
The company has operated almost exclusively from its revenue stream while expanding into 75 countries. This enabled it to build earlier investments into a significant cash reserve to use in upcoming acquisitions.
“In utility-scale solar design and construction, the physical output can only be as good as the software and data inputs. PVcase is building the leading end-to-end solution in the category, allowing its customers to more effectively design and develop scaled solar projects,” said Peter Fallon, General Partner at Elephant. “The Company is growing rapidly and capital efficiently, and we are excited to continue to back the team.”
“For solar data, there are no standards for how much to collect, when and how often to collect it, and what the data should cover,” said PVcase Chief Commercial Officer Douglas Geist. “PVcase’s momentum won the confidence of these investors that we can address this challenge.”
