The 10 Most Intelligent Energy Tech Companies to Watch in 2021

VOL 01 I ISSUE 02 I 2021

Frédéric Gastaldo

CEO & co-founder

tiko Energy

Solutions AG

Industry Insight

Time For

Transformation

Of Energy Tech Sectors

Leaders Viewpoint

Reasons Why There

Is A Need For Setting

A Positive Work Culture

For Remote Employees

The 10 Most

Intelligent

Energy Tech

Companies to

Watch in 2021

tiko Energy

Solutions AG

Revolutionizing Energy Sector

through Virtual Power Plant

Editor’s Desk

The Future of

Energy

he rapid changes in technologies we use in

Tdaily basis is dramatically increasing the

global demand for electric power. As users,

we’re consuming power at an alarming rate, from air

conditioning systems, household appliances, heating

systems, and all forms of entertainment devices to

cloud computing, computers, and consumer

electronics.

With the fourth industrial revolution, we’re also

stepping towards electric vehicles at an ever

increasing rate. And let’s not forget the industrial

power needed to produce all these products, as well as

keep the other wheels of industry turning. According

to a report, the global electricity demand has been

expected to nearly double from the year 2010 to 2030.

There is no doubt that we are going to consume more

electricity than we can generate or distribute. The

situation becomes more obvious during summer

months where peak power demand is highest and the

frequency of rolling black and brown outs increases.

Intelligent Energy Network can be the answer of all

energy problems. By definition, it is an integrated

network of multiple energy vectors which are

managed in an intelligent way. The IEN is to be

capable, with a continuous monitoring and analysis of

the energy needs in required quantity, quality and

type, of managing energy vectors production and

storage. The storage points available in a pre-defined

section of the network (IEN cell) to produce,

transport/store, and supply the right mix of

energy vectors to meet the demand.

The concept of Intelligent Energy Network is an

effective way to highlight the importance of

renewable energy sources. And Insights

Success, in its upcoming edition “The 10 Most

Intelligent Energy Tech Companies to Watch

in 2021”, is bringing top companies which are

known for their advance intelligent energy

solutions and services.

The cover features Renewable Energy Group

(REG). The company is leading the energy

industry's transition to sustainability by

transforming renewable resources into highquality,

cleaner fuels. Since its inception in

2006, Renewable Energy Group has blended

environmental stewardship with profitable

solutions.

Also, while flipping the pages, don’t forget to go

through the articles and CXOs written by our inhouse

editorial team and industry experts

respectively.

rohit.chaturvedi@insightssuccess.com

Happy Reading!

COVER STORY

08

tiko Energy

Solutions AG



ARTICLE

32

Industry Insight

Time For Transformation Of

Energy Tech Sectors

Leaders Viewpoint

20

Reasons Why There

Is A Need For Setting

A Positive Work Culture

For Remote Employees

C

16

Origami

Creating a Green

Energy World

with Innovation

O

N

T

E

N

24

Renewable

Energy Group

Blending Environmental

Stewardship with

Profitable Solutions

28

Utilibill

Guiding Utilities to

the Cloud

through Digital

Transformation

T

S

36

Wuudis

Solutions Oy

Easy-to-use IT

Solutions for Forestry

Editor-in-Chief

Sumita Sarkar

Managing Editor

Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Rohit Chaturvedi

Assistant Editors

Jenny Fernandes

Visualizer

David King

Art & Design Director

Asha Bange

Associate Designer

Kushagra Gupta

Co-designer

Kartik Balapurkar

Senior Sales Manager

Kshitij S

Business Development Manager

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

John Matthew

Sales Executives

David, Martin, Sagar

Technical Head

Jacob Smile

Business Development Executives

Steve, Joe, Aidan, Binay

Technical Specialist

Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager

Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive

Amol Wadekar

Research Analyst

Frank Adams

Circulation Manager

Database Management Technology Consultant

Robert Brown Stella Andrew David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com

January, 2021

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Company Name

Huckert's International

huckerts.net

Featured Person

Valérie HUCKERT

and

Florence Huckert

Owner

Brief

Created in 1957, Laboratoire HUCKERT'S International

develops and manufactures disinfectants and hygiene products

of high technology.

Metrendalytics Consultants

metrendalytics.com

Jahanara (Jan) Miotto

President

Metrendalytics Consulting, focused on helping companies

develop highly customized and flexible business intelligence

solutions.

New Energy Equity

newenergyequity.com

Matt Hankey

President & CEO

New Energy Equity is the country’s leading end-to-end solar

development and finance specialist company, having

successfully completed more than 150 projects totaling more

than 145 megawatts.

Renewable Energy

Group

regi.com

Cynthia (CJ) Warner

President CEO

Renewable Energy Group is leading the transformation of

biofuel into something that helps improve the environment and

grow customers’ profits.

ShalePro Energy Services

shalepro.com

Bill Johnson

PRESIDENT & CEO

ShalePro Energy Services (formerly Basin Energy Group) is

proud to provide best-in-class services to the production and

midstream sectors of the ever-growing oil and natural gas

industry.

Solar Wolf Energy Inc

solarwolfenergy.com

Ted Strzelecki

CEO

Solar Wolf Energy is a nationwide residential and commercial

solar energy installer with years of experience that provides

customers with the power to be off-grid or just offset their

electricity bill for financial independence.

tiko Energy Solutions AG

tiko.energy

Frédéric Gastaldo

CEO, co-founder

tiko's flexible and modular technology enables innovative,

hybrid business models that allow each actor to gain money

and efficiency while enabling consumers to gain insight and

control over their energy consumption.

Utilibill

utilibill.com.au

Morgan Duncan

CEO

Utilibill® embrace customer self enablement. This extends to

its utility and Telco customers.

Venture Kick

venturekick.ch

Dr Danil Korchagin

Founder

Venture Kick was launched in 2007 with the vision to double

the number of spin-offs at Swiss universities, to accelerate the

time-to-market and to raise the attractiveness of these young

companies to professional investors.

Wuudis Solutions

wuudis.com

Seppo Huurinainen

CEO

With the help of Wuudis, forest operators manage the client's

forest assets in a comprehensive and transparent manner,

respecting the will and vision of the forest owner.

The 10 Most Intelligent Energy Tech Companies to Watch in 2021

tiko Energy

Solutions AG



With its active VPP

deployments, tiko is one

of the biggest real-time

Smart Grids in the world.

Cover Story

Frédéric Gastaldo

CEO & co-founder

tiko Energy Solutions AG

“

At tiko, we believe that

the energy revolution

will come from the

people, for the people.

The change will be

possible if we collectively

change the way we

consume energy.

Power is crucial for driving economic growth of any

country, especially emerging markets.

The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant effects on the

power sector, particularly by leading to financial stress,

reduction of demand, and disruptions to the power supply

chain. Despite these challenges, there are still a few names

which are leading the energy sector and providing

exceptional experiences to their customers. One such name

is tiko Energy Solutions which is leading the energy

revolution and delivering the power of a Virtual Power

Plant (VPP). The company designed an award-winning

Smart Home Energy Management system to connect

Residential and SME assets. It is also one of the world’s

major real-time Smart Grids with its active VPP

deployments.

Below are the highlights of the interview conducted

between Insights Success and tiko Energy Solutions AG

CEO Frédéric Gastaldo:

Cover Story

centralized supply to a decentralized world with distributed

energy resources. These resources had to be managed and

integrated into balancing between energy supply and demand.

This was tiko’s starting point.

We created a solution that is able to connect existing

residential devices such as heat-pumps, batteries, electric car

charging stations, and direct heating systems, independent of

their age and brand, because we believe that the change we

need in the way we consume energy needs to come from the

people – and luckily most of us already have what we need at

home. Too much energy means some devices connected to

the tiko platform will start working a bit earlier than their

normal cycle – too little, a bit later. Climate change is, and

will continue to be, a personal topic that affects all of us, not

just an strategic decision for industrial players to worry

about. With this in mind, we ALL (not only the owners of

smart devices) need to be given the means to enable change

now. It’s our vision, and it’s our claim: Together we’re

stronger.

Describe your company and its energy solutions which

address all the needs of your customers. How does your

energy solution differ from others?

tiko offers a unique Home Energy Management System-

(HEMS) coupled to a VPP. The HEMS is unique because it’s

holistic, allowing us to control and optimize a vast array of

devices - from heat pumps to e-car chargers, PV systems,

decentralized heaters, or residential batteries - and is

expandable as clients can connect new devices as they

acquire them. It also allows retrofits, enabling customers with

old devices to enjoy state of the art functionalities.

What led to the inception of tiko Energy Solutions

AG?

tiko Energy Solutions was founded in 2012 following the

Fukushima accident. Indeed, Swisscom, one of today’s

investors and employer of tiko’s co-founders at the time,

was asked to contribute to the energy turnaround in

Switzerland with the goal of getting 100% of our energy

from renewable sources, preventing more such nuclear

accidents. There was an understanding that the disruption

in the energy industry would lead to a change from a

Finally, it’s highly affordable, especially coupled to our VPP:

by agreeing to participate to the VPP, end-customers

contribute to stabilize grids and thus promote the integration

of renewables in our energy supply, but they also benefit from

a very affordable HEMS as the VPP revenue enables clients

to create innovative business cases. Everybody wins – which

we believe to be the key to commercial success and thus

higher adoption rates. High adoption rates mean more people

controlling the way they consume energy, which in turn will

have an impact on the climate. Millions of people better

monitoring their consumption, and saving energy would have

a massive impact.

Our Virtual Power Plants themselves are really disruptive

because the concept itself swaps bottom up the dependencies

between the power plants and the users. Users normally fully

depend on traditional power plants but VPP’s are increasingly

depending on users. Considering the increase in renewables

market share, this swapping is accelerating and will do even

more.

Self-consumption optimization can also provide massive

benefits. Instead of sending energy back and forth (PV

overproducing and sending to the grid in the day, then house

taking from the grid in the night) local self-consumption

optimization can lower the required power plants size and

reduce user’ costs.

How are advanced technologies bringing disruption in

energy industry?

New technologies based on software and data science allow

companies to manage end customer relationships in a

unprecedent way: that is an opportunity for new entrants in the

markets. They will be able to outpace incumbents, focus on high

net worth consumers and establish high quality customer

relationships resulting in higher net promoting scores. Today,

well-known applications are virtual power plants, solar selfconsumption

optimization and power management for loads in a

decentralized and incremental way. Consumers will become

independent.

The tiko platform brings

you the power of a Virtual

Power Plant and an

award-winning Home

Energy Management

system designed to

connect your Residential

and SME assets.

Cover Story

What are the greatest challenges the energy industry

facing and how are they best dealt with?

Since the idea of vertical monopolies and central control and

command is outdated, the new world is more complex and

requires other competences from companies. Competences in

software, partnering, and M&A are becoming increasingly

strategic. The pace is increasing and the customers expect

services according to the promises made by politicians and

regulators.

What technologies are you leveraging to make your

solutions more resourceful?

Infrastructure as as service (virtualization, digitization),

systems as a service and data science are significant

technologies to stay at the competitive edge.

What are your company’s future aspirations? What

strategies are you undertaking to achieve those goals?

We are planning to further expand geographically and to

target new segments. The more devices we connect to our

solution, the bigger our impact on the climate change. The

current pandemic crisis shows us that the sense of community,

the need to do something good together, and the need for

more control and transparency are all growing. We are

developing the right solution by answering this need.

We believe it is important that we take this opportunity to

build up communities that can better connect our societies,

making them more resilient and inclusive. Finding new ways

to accelerate the energy transition is quickly becoming one of

the most important tasks we face as a society; it’s only fitting

that one of the most promising solutions will see us once

again coming together and embracing the idea of community.

Clients’ Testimonials

“The unique technology developed by tiko will enable us to

create new services for our residential customers and move

towards the building of decentralized energy communities. It

effectively completes our portfolios of load-balancing and

storage solutions, which are so crucial to the achievement of

the energy transition.” Yves Le Gélard Chief Digital Officer,

ENGIE Group

“With tiko, we offer our customers a solution for optimizing

their photovoltaic self-consumption and can use household

loads for virtual power plant applications. An example: with

the tiko solution, we have successfully implemented a project

for the central control of e-charging stations in a typical lowvoltage

network.”

Christian Lechner, Project Management, EVN

About the Leader

After a successful career in the

manufacturing, consulting and telco

industries, Frédéric Gastaldo, tiko’s CEO

and co-founder, shaped tiko’s vision

around his own personal belief that we

can give our planet a chance if we

collectively change the way we

consume energy. It’s his deep

conviction that we don’t have much

time to make this happen as our planet

needs us, and this change needs to

come from the people – and already is.

“As global warming hits the planet in a

matter of a couple human generations,

we have an incredibly short period of

time for the entire system to adjust and

avoid dramatic consequences. At tiko

we are committed to deliver

technologies which enable the energy

transition here and now; As opposed to

too little too late.”

&

20

The

Most

SUCCESSFUL

BUSINESSWOMEN

to Watch, 2020

kimberly Khoury

Paving her Way in Sustainability Development

Creating a Green Energy World with Innovation

he world is approaching towards the energy

Tsystem which will continue in the future, a shift

for a more sustainable energy system. An

important part of this approach will be the deployment of

smart and green energy solutions in the business and

household sector. Origami, a company that strives to

mitigate its carbon footprint and follows global best

practices related to Environmental, Social and

Governance, provides software solutions through its

platform, to help energy companies thrive amid more

complex and volatile energy markets.

Peter Bance, CEO of Origami, came up with the

concept for the company 12 years ago. He saw that

companies were investing billions into energy assets but

that once deployed, those assets were not being managed

in a smart way. The need for this smart management, but

also its complexity, would grow quickly with more solar

and wind energy. Out of this sprang the idea for Origami

– an energy technology company which would help

inform and execute the thousands of decisions that

needed to be made for a renewable-centric electricity

system to run smoothly and efficiently.

In an interview with Insights Success, Peter Bance

exemplified the significance of digital solutions to

accelerate the energy transformation.

Below are the highlights of the interview:

Describe your company and its energy solutions

which address all the needs of your customers.

Origami provides real-time energy optimization

solutions to the energy market, operating at the forefront

of the global energy transformation.

As renewables grow and energy markets shift closer to

real-time, powerful technology is required. Origami’s

modular suite of real-time, machine learning solutions

enables energy companies to quickly make and execute

informed decisions across physical and financial

positions, and to do so at scale. Real-time monitoring

and intelligent control of large numbers and types of

energy assets enables energy traders to respond quickly

to changes in the energy market, increase their

profitability, access new revenue opportunities and

improve trading positions.

16 | January 2021 www.insightssuccess.com


Peter Bance,

CEO

Origami

Origami is defining a new category in the global energy

sector with mission-critical software products to

accelerate the transition to a net-zero world.

How does your energy solution differ from others?

Energy traders already use a lot of specialist software to

help them make decisions. A big problem is that these

are often difficult to integrate – which limits the quality

of information that’s available to make decisions quickly

and at scale. Origami offers an interoperable suite of

real-time energy optimization tools for energy companies

to select what they need today, that can be integrated

with more modules in the future. Origami provides better

visibility for energy companies, with real-time

monitoring and visualization of assets and markets. We

also provide tools to decide how to use this information

with modules that enable dynamic opportunity

identification and decision support. We can also enable

the automated execution of asset and market instructions.

Origami offers the versatility for energy companies to

integrate their own data and deploy bespoke machine

learning models on our platform at scale.

Give a detailed description of the featured person’s

influence over energy optimization solutions industry.

Peter has spent his career focused on building high

growth ventures and technology commercialization,

primarily in the cleantech sector. He was CEO of a

combined heat and power business that he took public on

the London Stock Exchange (AIM) and then became

Entrepreneur in Residence at Octopus Investments

working with their venture capital team and renewable

energy business, before he founded Origami.

Alongside his role at Origami, Peter sits on several

bodies which bring together senior business, government

www.insightssuccess.com

January 2021 | 17

energy systems not only to adapt, but to embrace and

profit from these changes.

““ Real-time energy

optimisation software

What is the greatest challenges energy industry

facing and how are they best dealt with

The energy transition presents a huge challenge, and big

opportunities. The emerging system is faster, more

complex and interconnected. As weather increasingly

drives supply and demand, more decisions need to be

made shortly before delivery. With renewable generation

at its heart, the new energy system needs intelligent

technology at its head.

Today’s tools were designed for a slower world. Manual

workarounds, siloed information and batched processes

limit the capability of energy companies to respond as

the system speeds up.

and academic voices from across the UK energy

industry. He is a non-exec director on the Energy

Systems Catapult – set up to accelerate the energy

transition by applying expert ‘whole-systems’ thinking,

and of the Energy Research Partnership – which

provides high-level leadership to UK energy research.

He is also a member of the UK Government’s Smart

System Forum – a group of senior level experts and

stakeholders in smart technologies, new business models

and the energy system.

Could you throw some light on company’s mission

and vision statement?

We need a whole new approach using machine learning

to optimise the use of energy in real-time; Real-time

energy optimisation modules that integrate by design.

Automated workflows, open frameworks for innovation,

versatile microservices, configurable interfaces,

delivering the information you need, when you need it.

What technologies are you leveraging to make your

solutions more resourceful?

Our platform is hosted on the cloud (AWS). We are

building machine learning, Big Data solutions – a few of

the technologies we are leveraging are Kafka and

Cassandra.

Ÿ

Ÿ

Our vision: A green energy world, powered by smart

technology.

Our mission: To provide the time-critical visibility,

decision-making and execution solutions required in

an increasingly green energy system.

How are advance technologies bringing disruption in

energy industry?

Energy industries around the world are undergoing huge

disruption from new technologies – Renewables, storage,

electric vehicles. The aim of course is to reduce our

global carbon emissions, but these technologies are

challenging for energy systems built largely upon coal

and gas. Digital technology solutions aren’t really the

disrupter here – they are providing the solution for


Leaders Viewpoint

REASONS

WHY THERE IS A NEED FOR

SETTING A POSITIVE WORK CULTURE

Since 2000, AsiaPay has been a global team operating in 14 offices across the Asia

Pacific region. After trying many remote work processes and sharing platforms, we

have learned what are the best practices that will make an organisation successful

in building a forward-thinking and resilience team in these perilous times.

emote work business model

RWe strongly believe that creating a remote working

environment requires a high level of awareness,

engagement, communication and investment in human

resources, so that the digital products we provide to our

customers and partners will be trusted, educational,

inspiring and valuable.

Benefits of working Remotely

Ÿ

Ÿ

Ÿ

It can attract talent and resources from all over the world

and maintain the workflow in a 24 hours’ cycle.

AsiaPay’s employees comprises of people from

multicultural background that have an innovative spirit

and skillful performance.

It can improve efficiency and morale, enrich the

imagination and influence within the organization.

An important part of effective communication is

establishing clear reporting relationships, so that each

employee should be clear about their roles and where

their work is going. Besides, it is also important to share

and communicate with the internal team and know their

conviction through a compelling vision.

For employees, having a positive outlook in their daily

work is essential by first having a work-life balance, which

has become more challenging now, since there is now

remote work practice. With the pandemic in mind, let’s talk

about ensuring a positive collaborative environment for

employees outside the workplace.

In this new Normal

AsiaPay is on top of the situation when it comes to

implementing safety protocols and social distancing order

for employees in the workplace. Having work safety

measures, fostering creativity, and maximising productivity

are some of the top priorities in a leading FinTech

organization.

To keep our positive work culture for our trusted

employees, we provide:


Joseph Chan

AsiaPay


January 2021 | 21

More than that, in compliance with the safety protocols

against COVID-19, we have implemented these rules in our

office environment and ‘Work-From-Home’ setting:

Ÿ Practice Work-From-Home & Flexible Working Hours

Ÿ Ensure a clean working environment with continued

sanitization and provision of medical supplies

Ÿ Make effective use of online meeting tools and webinars

On top of that, we have:

Ÿ Develop various “Learn-From-Home” training programs

Ÿ Launch “Family Aid” program for employees with

financial needs

Ÿ Offer “Holiday benefits” after lockdown

In conclusion, trust, engagement and communication are

important building blocks for creating a successful

telecommuting culture. You must share and show how the

team worked together to accomplish a task. When creating

a blueprint for a remote work structure, team members need

to have a clear understanding of how the team operates and

monitor how the team members are working in real time.

About Asia Pay

Founded in 2000, AsiaPay is a premier digital payment

solution and technology vendor in Asia, strives to bring

advanced, secure, integrated, and cost-effective digital

payment processing solutions and services to banks and e-

businesses around the world. Our integrated payment

services covers credit and debit cards, bank account/net

banking, digital wallets, over-the-counters, prepaid cards

and other digital means.

Ÿ

Ÿ

Ÿ

Ÿ

Ÿ

A positive and comfortable working atmosphere.

Working smart and leveraging time to create more value

through technology

Developing training, best practices and implementing

employee ownership on a sustainable basis.

We maintain a healthy work environment by having

‘Work-Life Balance’ for our employees.

We hold workshop gatherings that let us meet team

members from different countries and be able to share

knowledge and build teamwork.

Ÿ We value the people behind our workforce by

empowering them and let them take ownership in their

roles.

We are an accredited payment processor and payment

gateway solution vendor for banks, and certified

international 3-D Secure vendor for Visa, Mastercard,

American Express, JCB, Discover Global Network and

UnionPay.

AsiaPay offers a variety of award-winning, multi-currency,

multi-lingual, multi-card, and multi-channelled payment

solutions, bundled with our advanced functionalities

including fraud detection, tokenization, data analytic etc.

Headquartered in Hong Kong, we offer professional digital

payment service and solution with quality local account and

technical service across 14 operative offices in Asia.

www.asiapay.com

www.paydollar.com



Cynthia (CJ) Warner

President and CEO

Renewable Energy Group


Renewable

Energy Group

Blending Environmental Stewardship

with Profitable Solutions

urrently the world is witnessing the crisis of climate

Cchange, and if we do not act responsibly this crisis

could rise exponentially. We are now in a time

where we must act today, or the dangerous impacts of

climate change could be irreversible. Renewable energy

solutions could be one way of reducing greenhouse gas

emissions. Transforming renewable energy resources into

high-quality, cleaner fuels is an important factor in

sustainability.

Renewable Energy Group (REG) is leading the energy

industry's transition to sustainability by transforming

renewable resources into high-quality, cleaner fuels. Since

its inception in 2006, Renewable Energy Group has blended

environmental stewardship with profitable solutions.

In an interview with Insights Success, Cynthia (CJ)

Warner, the President and CEO of REG shares the

journey of the company and its contribution towards

sustainable development. Below are the highlights of the

interview between CJ and Insights Success:

What led to the inception of the company?

Renewable Energy Group can trace its roots back 25 years,

when we operated under the umbrella of an agricultural

cooperative in Iowa. Our biodiesel provided an added value

for farmers by repurposing their vegetable oil by-product

while at the same time bringing a more environmentally

friendly fuel to market. We grew along with the biodiesel

industry, and in August 2006, Renewable Energy Group,

Inc., was formed as an independent corporation.

Describe your company and its energy solutions which

address all the needs of your customers.

REG is a publicly traded global company with operations in

the U.S. and Europe, including 12 bio-refineries. We are

leading the energy industry's transition to sustainability by

transforming renewable resources into cleaner fuels like

biodiesel, renewable diesel, and a blend of those two known

®

as REG Ultra Clean . These fuels help fleets lower their

carbon footprint using their existing vehicles with no

performance compromises.

How does your energy solution differ from others?

Unlike some alternatives, our fuels are not a solution whose

promise sits somewhere in the future. They are available

now at scale. Biodiesel, renewable diesel, and REG Ultra

Clean do not require engine upgrades or new vehicle

purchases. Also, they can be used in the same fueling

infrastructure as petroleum diesel, so availability is not an

issue. Our fuels offer lower carbon, ease of adoption and a

good return on investment.

Please talk about your experience and how you're trying

to bring change to the energy management solutions.

I've worked in the energy industry for more than 35 years

and have held executive positions in operations, business

development, strategy, environment, health and safety. I

joined REG as President and CEO two years ago because I

wanted to work with a growing company that was taking a

lead role in changing the industry for the better. Over my

career, the needs of the environment have become greater

and greater. We are now at a time in which we must act

today, or the dangerous impacts of climate change could be

irreversible. I am committed personally, and we have an

innovative and passionate team at REG bringing energy

solutions that can make a difference today.

Could you throw some light on company's mission and

vision statement?

REG is well positioned as the largest producer of biodiesel

in North America and an industry-leading producer of

renewable diesel to support the global energy transition to a

cleaner future. REG delivers high-quality, innovative fuel

solutions to our customers and our products are making a

positive difference now.


January 2021 | 25

How are advance technologies bringing disruption in energy

industry?

For the energy industry to transform, it will take many solutions and

many innovations. There is space and healthy competition for

emerging markets. REG is well-positioned today to provide readily

available solutions that are reducing carbon now. Biodiesel and

renewable diesel are proven solutions for the diesel transport space

today. As a producer of both fuels, we are able to lead in this way and

provide real-time solutions to our customers looking to reduce carbon

emissions.

What are the greatest challenges the energy industry facing and

how are they best dealt with?

“REG is meeting the

growing global demand

for lower-carbon

fuels and leading the

way to a more

sustainable future.”

The greatest challenge is the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

and slow climate change. Transportation is one the largest

contributors of harmful GHGs. Governments, the private sector and

the general public are all demanding that something must be done. As

one example, look at the rise in environmental, social and governance

(ESG) investing in recent years. BlackRock, the world's largest asset

manager, said last year that demand for action to address climate

change has put us “on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of

finance.” Energy companies need to offer climate solutions, and these

need to help not just long term but also today.

What technologies are you leveraging to make your solutions

more resourceful?

REG has a robust research and development program. One example is

research on potential new feedstocks that could generate even greater

emissions reductions in the finished fuel. Our technology also allows

us to make high-quality fuel from a variety of feedstocks, including

used cooking oil, inedible corn oil and animal fats. This feedstock

flexibility sets us apart in the industry and helps us to pivot quickly to

other advantaged feedstocks, as necessary. Another example of our

improving our operations is by finding clean power solutions, like

using wind power as a source of energy.

Here are a few testimonials from REG customers:

“We are very customer-focused, and a lot of our customers have

sustainability goals, and we want to support them by being a cleaner

supplier. With biodiesel, you can start being cleaner without having to

do any equipment or infrastructure changes.” – Ruan Transportation

“REG has a world-class laboratory with world-class professionals

working there.” – Iowa Department of Transportation

“Biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group has the largest

Potentially Avoided Emissions in the portfolio. The company is one of

the top holdings in the fund by weight. Its products displace diesel,

which emits around ~0.4 tons of carbon per barrel, and the company

utilizes a waste-oriented feedstock model.” – DNB, Norway's largest

financial services group and a strong advocate for ESG investing.



January 2021 | 27


Guiding Utilities to the Cloud

through Digital Transformation

The market is filled with energy solutions

providers. There are very few offering solutions

that address one of utilities biggest challenges,

facilitating digital transformation to the cloud. Being one

of these, well established billing service providers,

Utilibill offers a cloud-based utility billing and Customer

information platform which helps their clients manage

the complete billing processes. Their company purpose

is 'making billing easy'they do this by streamlining the

business processes across enterprise.

Utilibill, founded by Igor Green, the CEO and Morgan

Duncan, the MD, a billing expert and an established

entrepreneur, combined their knowledge to present

enterprises with better billing solutions. This leadership

has received accolade and awards from Deloitte

Australia and Deloitte Asia Pacific, AMA, Australian

Exports, Governor of Victoria, AIIA, ACMA, smart 100,

Australian Utilities Show to name a few. This utility

billing provider deploys a lean Software-as-a-Service

model to Startups as well as established large

organizations.

Over-the-top Solutions at One's Step

Utilibill provides a range of services to both small and

large enterprises. The company specializes in mid-tier

utilities, this segment often does not have an appetite for

a SAP or Oracle solution. SAP is great framework for

large business, but medium sized utilities prefer working

with consultancies to source, deploy and implement

solutions. Utilibill is a perfect platform to deal with

common utilities issues at a more acceptable price point

and faster delivery time frame. The service offering

includes;

Billing—one of the most comprehensive billing engines

in the business, Utilitybilling record millions of records,

on a daily basis. For Utility and for Telco there are very

few tariffs or complex rate cards in the market our

platform cannot replicate – this includes bundles, fleets,

time of use metering.

Invoicing & Reminders—fully customizable html

invoices making it one of the most feature rich and

flexible tools in the market. The automated reminder

treatment follows customizable dunning's process.

Customer engagement portals—let's face it, consumers

prefer to be help themselves. Enterprises are shifting


Morgan Duncan

CEO

Igor Green


January 2021 | 29

system integrators. “We have invested heavily in building

a robust digital transformation toolkit, we use it

internally to transition Utility providers from legacy

systems. We now can provide this same toolkit to our

system integrators and partners. This enables them to

build on their customer relationships, grow their revenue

stack and provide more value in these relationships.”

from traditional call center centric solutions to mobilecentric,

customer first solutions. This drives down the

cost to serve and increases customer satisfaction.

Utilibill allows the enterprises to transition to selfservice

focused solutions to most use cases.

With the rapid increase of agile players in the energy

sector, the company believes that the market is shifting,

3 years ago utilities were scared to move to the cloud.

Now IT managers and CIOs are looking for

implementation partners and suppliers to move to the

cloud smoothly and efficiently. It is no longer a question

of if, it is when and how soon.

API—everyone needs web service APIs these days to

enable the automation between disparate systems.

Utilibill currently offers over 500 pages of documented

APIs with working examples to assist their partners and

the enterprises integration efforts.

Print Integration– Utilibill not only provide their clients

with e-bills but also, handles the print integration,

insertion of welcome packs and specials.

Meanwhile, the company also offers other services such

as Onboarding tools, AMR and market systems direct

integration as well as a suite of payment platform

integrations.

Optimistic About the Future

Utilibill invests heavily in innovation, ensuring they

continue rise to the top of this industry. A new inclusion

in focus this year is investing in channels partners and


Time for

TRANSFORMATION

of ENERGY TECH

Sectors


Industry Insight

The new world is complex and is in

competences with other companies.

Competences in IT, software, and Marketing

& Advertising are becoming increasingly strategic.

The pace is increasing and the customers expect

services according to the promises made by the

regulators.

New innovations and technologies based on energytech

allow companies to be able to focus on high-networth

and establish high-quality customer

relationships resulting in higher net promoting scores.

Today, well-known energy tech organizations are

power plants, solar self-consumption optimizations,

and power management for loads in a decentralized

and incremental way.

Energy tech industries around the world are

undergoing a huge change; from new technologies to

renewables, and electric vehicles. The aim is to reduce

global carbon emissions. But these technologies are

challenging for energy sectors which is built largely

upon coal and gas.

As renewables grow and energy markets shift closer to

real-time, advance technology is required. Real-time

monitoring and intelligent control of large numbers

enable energy traders to respond quickly to changes in

the energy market. It helps to increase their

profitability, accesses new revenue opportunities, and

improve trading positions.

Digital technology solutions are not really the

disrupter here. They are providing the solutions for

energy systems not only to adapt but to embrace these

changes. The energy tech industry presents a huge

challenge and massive opportunities. The upcoming

technology is faster, complex, and interconnected.

As weather drives supply and demand, more decisions

need to be made shortly before the due date. With

renewable generation at its heart, the new energy

sector needs intelligent technology at its head. Today’s

energy sector tools are designed for a gentle world.

Manual loopholes, isolated information, and batched

processes limit the capability of energy tech

companies.

We need a whole new perspective using AI and

Machine Learning to enhance the use of energy in

real-time. Automated workflows, open frameworks for

innovation and disruption, configurable interfaces,

delivering the information you need, when you need

it. For the energy industry to transform, it will take

require a lot of solutions and innovations. The greatest

challenge will be the need to reduce greenhouse gas

emissions and slow down the rate of climate change.

Climate change and biodiversity are big societal,

governmental, and political problems. This can only

be addressed through sustainable forest and biomass

management. This is a difficult challenge requiring

high-performance monitoring and management

capabilities based on modern technologies. The

current scenario is static, lack of information on

updated forest and biomass resource data have also

been a significant problem. Moreover, visits to remote

sites are expensive and time-consuming to confirm the

actual conditions of the forests and other biomass

resources.

Transportation is one of the largest contributors to

harmful Greenhouse gases. It is the major

responsibility of the Governments, the private sector,

and the general public to contribute to the change. As

an example, look at the rise in (ESG) Environmental,

Social, and Governance investment in recent years.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, said

“last year that demand for action to address climate

change has put us on the edge of a fundamental

reshaping of finance.” Energy tech companies need to

answer problems to these hazardous climate issues,

and these need to help not just for today but for the

long term.

In view of the Government, there are solutions

available. Although it is a long way down to reach

there, together we can make it possible to change into

green energy sectors. If only companies and leaders

come together, change is possible to drive by dynamic

forest, and biomass management. Additionally, with a

lot of digital platforms available today, we as the

public also hold a responsibility to promote the use of

the green energy sector by updated lifestyle.


January 2021 | 33


Wuudis Solutions Oy

Easy-to-use IT Solutions for Forestry

re you suffering a problem of maintaining work

Aand family balance due to extensive travel to sites

and massive amounts of paperwork at the office?

Luckily, Wuudis Solutions Oy - forest management and

monitoring software solution keeps you updated with all

information in real-time regarding your forest business. You

can monitor and manage your forest from anywhere and

anytime even without visiting your forest. You can also

easily see what operations need to be carried out and how

much money you can make by immediately logging in.

Easy and Profitable Setup

Seppo Huurinainen, a forest owner from Finland was

lacking a complete end-to-end digital service integrated

with up-to-date satellite and field data to manage and

monitor his 1000 hectare of forest property easily and

profitably. No kind of platform service existed in the

market, which could enable Seppo to manage his forest

property data and its operations digitally.

This problem drove Seppo to build a platform service for

the dynamic forest, biomass, plantation, and related natural

resource management and monitoring, and hence the

company named Wuudis Solutions Oy was born. According

to Seppo, his forest property works as a ‘sandbox’ to test all

Wuudis services.

Updated Software

Wuudis software platform is the most advanced dynamic

forest, biomass, and plantation monitoring and management

service. It allows the frequent, reliable, and harmonized

update of diversified biomass and satellite data. The

software platform performs satellite image interpretation

monitoring activities using AI, on free Sentinel and other

satellite data, as well as available open data. The software

interfaces of the platform facilitate the day-to-day

operational business and resource monitoring, helping

stakeholders to increase their income while reducing

operational costs.

Accessible and User-Friendly

Climate change and biodiversity loss are major societal

problems. This can be addressed through sustainable forest

and biomass management and monitoring. This is a

complex challenge requiring high-performance monitoring

and management capabilities based on modern

technologies. But in the current scenario, static information

and lack of updated forest and biomass resource data have

been a major problem. Moreover, visits to remote sites are

expensive and time-consuming to verify the actual

conditions of our forests and other biomass sources.

In view of the European Space agency Copernicus program,

there are ample satellite data available. Now, to use this

high-value data source, we need data processing capability

and usable IT solutions to make it accessible for forest and

related natural resources industry end-users. Wuudis

platform services are covering these needs to drive dynamic

forest, biomass, and plantation management, and

monitoring. Additionally, Wuudis platform services help

users to reduce their site visits as all updated resource data

is available over a smartphone.

Improving and Evolving

Wuudis is a scalable and dynamic forest, biomass,

plantation, and related natural resource management and

monitoring service. It can integrate up-to-date satellite from

European Space Agency, field information, and other open

data sources to use advanced data analytics and

digitalization to improve the efficiency of the entire supply


Seppo

Huurinainen

CEO


January 2021 | 37

“

“

chain, from planting to harvesting, supply chain, and enduse.

The company consists of modular operational tools

accessible through biomass geoinformatics. By providing

real-time data for monitoring and decision-making, it also

yields better forest health and quality of wood, less CO 2

emissions from optimized transportation, and up-to-date

biomass resource information for commercial exploitation

within sustainable limits. Additionally, it includes

functionalities such as biodiversity preservation and

monitoring of forest hazards.

Wuudis platform services can produce cost savings of 20%

by just converting paper-based forest, biomass, and

plantation management plans into a digital form used with a

smartphone. Additionally, the up-to-date biomass resource

information based on satellite and field data, available on

Wuudis platform drives the profitability of forest and

biomass industries and companies. Through its present

customers, it is proven that Wuudis improves the efficiency

of daily routines by 20-40%, increases revenues by 10-15%,

and reduces an enormous amount of CO

2emissions through

the more efficient mobilization of biomass.

A Persistent Entrepreneur

Huurinainen, CEO of Wuudis Solutions Oy is a veteran

entrepreneur in developing and commercializing ICT based

solutions for forestry, biomass, and related natural resourcebased

business. He has over three decades of experience in

the Forest and Bioenergy sector. His academic background

includes specialization in GIS, IT, and silviculture with five

university-level degrees.

He is the founder of Wuudis Solutions Oy, currently

offering a wide range of ICT solutions for up-to-date forest,

biomass, plantation, and related natural resource

management and monitoring. Before becoming an

entrepreneur, he held several developments and research

positions within the forest and agriculture industry and

worked for organizations such as the Finnish Forest and

Park Service, Metla, the Forest Centre, Metsäliitto, Stora

Enso, and the National Board of Education.

Focused on the Bio-energy Sector

The forestry and biomass industry are facing a transition

due to advancements in Big-data and AI technologies.

Wuudis has embraced the value of the Big-data and AI with

open arms. As a part of the ICT4 Forest project funded by

the European Space Agency, the organization is integrating

with multiple big-data sources like satellite data, field data,

and other open data sources, to run forest, biomass, and

related natural resource business as a one-stop solution.

Moreover, other service providers in the forestry and

biomass IT domain can bring their services into its platform

and generate income. The Wuudis platform will

revolutionize the way forestry and biomass business works

today as every stakeholder will be able to generate income

from the ecosystem and a win-win situation will be created

for everyone in the business value-chain.

Wuudis mission is to build an end-to-end platform service

for comprehensive forest, biomass, plantation, and related

natural resources management and monitoring. This

platform would consist of an app, web-service, and AIbased

solutions to increase the profitability and positive

environmental impact.

Wuudis’ vision is to grow into one of the leading IT and

data management companies globally to improve forest,

biomass, and plantation management, and real-time

monitoring of wood and bio-materials supplies.


The 10 Most Intelligent Energy Tech Companies to Watch in 2021

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