I recently attended Solarplaza’s Asset Management Europe Summit in Prague. I left energized (pun intended). We were there sharing learnings from our partnership with Lightsource bp transitioning from legacy to agentic asset management.

We are at the Start of the 5th Industrial Revolution, which will likely be the most disruptive in human history. The clean electrification of everything. AI remodelling how we work. 

So in the pre-conference survey, AI - but also BESS - dominated the audience questionnaire as “the biggest buzzword in Asset Management for you right now”

Want to be the bess-t? Build your BESS & trading muscles

Renewables are cannibalizing their own revenues and negative pricing is becoming a structural feature of energy markets. In this context, batteries and trading capabilities are the driver to create meaningful commercial value. 

To win, traditional developers will need to develop entirely new operating stacks. They need to develop trading capabilities to capture market volatility. They need to effectively manage their data stacks, and then leverage this context layer and use AI to automate, accelerate and improve decision-making.  

Use AI as the superpower to differentiate

AI was the top conference buzzword, but nothing we discussed with folks around the table was hype. AI is materially changing how teams run their assets, and the quality of technology that they should expect to support their work.

We co-presented three case studies with Lightsource bp about how they’re deploying Alentis and AI in their asset management workflows - across work management, inventory management and export statement reconciliation.

The linking thread is to build high-quality, structured, always-available, AI-ready datasets designed to scale. Superheroes can’t run on garbage - and that’s especially true for messy, complex operational assets. So set yourself up for success. 

And as you clean data structures, you need to think about how to manage cultural change. Your organizational stack must evolve alongside the tech stack. Because especially in a European context, that sometimes feels like half the battle.

BESS + AI means renewable asset management will become ever more commercial

In the subsidy era, asset management was defensive: maximize uptime, run scheduled maintenance, file compliance paperwork, and bank the feed-in tariff. Lots of manual work.

That era is over. The new baseline requires managing merchant risk, hedging exposure, optimizing tolling structures, and monetizing flexibility. Operational maintenance is still table stakes, but commercial optimization is where enterprise value is won or lost.

So it’s a good time for superheroes like AI to show up, and help you manage your assets more effectively.

Look forwards to seeing you next year!