Buckle up, solar pros, because things are about to get real SaaS-y.
As an industry we have a software problem, and it’s a real pain in the SaaS (last one, I swear). If Greentech Monitor’s report on solar PV asset management has it right, you’re using 10+ software products just to get through your asset management day to day.
So what do you need? A tool? A solution? A product? A platform? They’re all available, but do you know which of these you really need to optimize your asset management process? I think it’s important to be crystal clear in what we mean when we’re talking about software, and in this case, that means taking things back to basics. So let’s clear things up. What, exactly are we saying when we talk about renewables asset management platforms, versus solutions, versus products?
Terminology problems aren’t new in solar (hello Orange Button Initiative), and really, adding specialized software for the renewable energy industry means even more confusion.
Let’s get technical for a minute.
When you buy a software product, everything is hardcoded, including the logic. The rigidity built into the system means that you have to work a certain way, and that the software looks a certain way. If the developer wants to keep everyone happy, they have to take into consideration all potential processes their software might be asked to handle, or at least 80-90% of processes. This means you, the consumer, are generally left with a potentially bloated application that may feel and be overly complicated for your needs. You may even have to do some work arounds. Products, unless well maintained, usually have a finite life span, and don’t grow well with the business.
But when you talk about renewables, rigid systems don’t work well, because things change between projects, between jurisdictions, and between offtakers. Change is the norm. Forecasts are incredible for renewable capacity as a whole (and I think, realistically so), with capacity expected to grow by 43% by 2022 worldwide. Policy changes, and a loss of government support has put enough pressure on renewables in certain regions to make assets far more difficult to manage. Imagine your tech stack, when it relies on individual tools alone, being stretched as your business grows in complexity and size. Your accounting, monitoring, ticketing, document storage, and project management software aren’t just handling higher volumes of data, they’re also subject to your more nuanced processes and requirements, and data leakage is inevitable, with all the myriad problems that entails.
With a platform like ours, what you’ve bought is a lego set. You can follow the instructions, or build it to your liking. A platform is less a tool used to solve one set problem, and more a common infrastructure essential to multiple business processes . It’s a foundation that can be built on. Platforms separate the logic function from the rest of the code, and that is why they are built for change.They’re modular.
It may seem contradictory, but software can be both a product and a platform, and in fact it often is. Popular platforms usually start out looking more like products. Apple’s iPhone, when first released, had all core functionality built-in, and the App Store, that element of customization that made it a platform, came later. What this should tell you is that just because you can customize a software platform, or code on top of it, doesn’t mean it’s going to be complicated to use, or that you even need to do anything at all to it. For us, our platform can also function like a product if that’s what works for your business right now.
When your business grows, the customization and configuration that a platform allows means that platforms can grow with you, so there’s no reason to spend time and resources looking for new tools to solve new problems. You already have a Swiss Army Knife. You can add to it as you go.
