At a time when the whole world is witnessing record temperatures and Europe is experiencing yet another heatwave, the need for efficient renewable energy solutions is more urgent than ever. Despite considerable resources already invested in the solar market, the solar engineering industry lacks the digitisation needed to keep pace with demand.
As the leading solar design solution, Lithuanian startup PVcase (PhotoVoltaic Computer Aided Solar Engineering) is making solar project design faster, more efficient, and precise while solving the solar industry’s growing problem of data risk.
Secures $100M investment
PVcase, which specialises in solar project design software, has secured a joint investment of $100 million. Highland Europe, which backed UK-based online fashion brand ME+EM and French holiday company Le Collectionist), Energize and existing investor Elephant participated in the investment round. With this, the total funding raised by the company accounts for over $123 million.
PVcase aims to cover every step in the design and operations process in a single platform and this investment comes on the heels of the company’s recent acquisition of solar siting leader Anderson Optimization. The two platforms’ data fields have already been matched, enabling transfer with a few mouse clicks.
Post the acquisition, PVcase also introduced Anderson Optimization software to the European market, first covering Germany, Spain and the UK. It estimates that European developers will be able to cut their project design process from weeks to roughly 20 minutes.
“Data risk is a technical problem that could become an industry-wide constraint,” said PVcase CEO David Trainavicius. “With this investment, we can develop an end-to-end software solution that removes a significant barrier to solar’s global growth by saving time and cutting costs for developers.”
“Good, streamlined data across the design and construction lifecycle is the fuel we need to keep the renewable energy transition moving toward a cleaner future. We need to advance solar operations fully into the digital age by reducing data risk. We’re making this investment so PVcase can lead the industry to a solution,” said Irena Goldenberg, Partner at Highland Europe.
“The utility-scale solar industry is poised for explosive global growth in the coming years, yet it currently lacks the digital tools needed to meet the demand of the market,” said John Tough, managing partner of Energize Ventures and now a member of the PVcase board of directors. “Software solutions aimed at automating solar workflows and increasing data integrity are required for the market to become profitable and scalable. After getting to know the PVcase team, product and customers over the last two years, Energize is confident that PVcase is the software the industry needs to unlock its growth potential.”
“In utility-scale solar design and construction, the physical output can only be as good as the software and data inputs. PVcase is building the leading end-to-end solution in the category, allowing its customers to more effectively design and develop scaled solar projects,” said Peter Fallon, General Partner at Elephant. “The Company is growing rapidly and capital efficiently, and we are excited to continue to back the team.”
“For solar data, there are no standards for how much to collect, when and how often to collect it, and what the data should cover,” said PVcase Chief Commercial Officer Douglas Geist. “PVcase’s momentum won the confidence of these investors that we can address this challenge.”
Makes solar project design faster and more efficient
Founded in 2017 by David Trainavicius in Vilnius, PVcase is a next-generation PV software company. Driven by engineering know-how and cutting-edge development team, it changes the rules related to solar design operations worldwide. It focuses on automation and accuracy from the earliest stages of planning, incorporating 3D topographical data points to simulate the actual location of the solar plant, allowing customers to compete for and win more projects by delivering greater yields.
PVcase’s automation plug-in for AutoCAD has already been used to design over 3 GW of projects by some of the world’s largest players in solar renewable energy. With its extensive experience in the solar design industry, it sees opportunities to optimise and create efficiencies in other aspects of the evaluation and planning of commercial and utility scale PV projects and have several other products in the development process.
