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

T

he rapid changes in technologies we use in daily 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.

Happy Reading!

rohit.chaturvedi@insightssuccess.com

COVER STORY

08

tiko Energy Solutions AG

Revolutionizing Energy Sector through Virtual Power Plant

ARTICLE

32 Industry Insight Time For Transformation Of Energy Tech Sectors

20 Leaders Viewpoint Reasons Why There Is A Need For Setting A Positive Work Culture For Remote Employees

16

Origami Creating a Green Energy World with Innovation

28

Utilibill

Guiding Utilities to the Cloud through Digital Transformation

C O N T E N T S

24

Renewable Energy Group Blending Environmental Stewardship with Profitable Solutions

36

Wuudis Solutions Oy Easy-to-use IT Solutions for Forestry

Editor-in-Chief Sumita Sarkar Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Assistant Editors

Rohit Chaturvedi

Jenny Fernandes

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

David King

Asha Bange

Associate Designer Kushagra Gupta

Co-designer Kartik Balapurkar

Senior Sales Manager

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Martin, Sagar

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Aidan, Binay

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Amol Wadekar

Research Analyst Frank Adams

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com January, 2021

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Company Name

Featured Person

Brief

Huckert's International huckerts.net

Valérie HUCKERT and Florence Huckert Owner

Created in 1957, Laboratoire HUCKERT'S International develops and manufactures disinfectants and hygiene products of high technology.

Metrendalytics Consultants Jahanara (Jan) Miotto metrendalytics.com 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 Revolutionizing Energy Sector through Virtual Power Plant

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.

P

ower 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.

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

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

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

“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

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

T

he world is approaching towards the energy system 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.

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The 10 Most Intelligent Energy Tech Companies to Watch in 2021

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.

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.

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 www.insightssuccess.com

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 January 2021 | 17

energy systems not only to adapt, but to embrace and profit from these changes.

What is the greatest challenges energy industry facing and how are they best dealt with

“

Real-time energy optimisation software

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.

Our vision: A green energy world, powered by smart technology. Ÿ Our mission: To provide the time-critical visibility, decision-making and execution solutions required in an increasingly green energy system. Ÿ

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

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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.

R

emote work business model

We 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.

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.

Benefits of working Remotely In this new Normal 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. Ÿ It can improve efficiency and morale, enrich the imagination and influence within the organization. Ÿ An important part of effective communication is establishing clear reporting relationships, so that each employee should be clear about their roles and where Ÿ

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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:

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Joseph Chan AsiaPay

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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 ebusinesses 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

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.

We value the people behind our workforce by empowering them and let them take ownership in their roles.

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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

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The 10 Most Intelligent Energy Tech Companies to Watch in 2021

Cynthia (CJ) Warner President and CEO Renewable Energy Group 24 | January 2021

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Renewable Energy Group Blending Environmental Stewardship with Profitable Solutions

C

urrently the world is witnessing the crisis of climate change, 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 www.insightssuccess.com

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.

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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.

“REG is meeting the growing global demand for lower-carbon fuels and leading the way to a more sustainable future.”

What are the greatest challenges the energy industry facing and how are they best dealt with?

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.

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The 10 Most Intelligent Energy Tech Companies to Watch in 2021

Guiding Utilities to the Cloud through Digital Transformation

T

he 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

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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

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Morgan Duncan CEO Igor Green

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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

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Time for

TRANSFORMATION of ENERGY

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TECH Sectors

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Industry Insight

T

he 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.

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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.

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The 10 Most Intelligent Energy Tech Companies to Watch in 2021

Wuudis Solutions Oy Easy-to-use IT Solutions for Forestry

A

re you suffering a problem of maintaining work and 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

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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 www.insightssuccess.com

Seppo Huurinainen

CEO

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“ “ 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 CO2 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 CO2emissions through the more efficient mobilization of biomass.

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.

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.

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