We live and breathe renewable energy software to make life simpler for people generating clean energy
The founders of Sennen (Paul and Gaby) have been working in renewable energy projects for all their working lives. They found that the teams they worked in seemed to be constantly fire-fighting and never able to take a structured approach to their business processes. Growing ever more frustrated with repetitive tasks and poor quality software tools, they created Sennen.
The vision was to create a flexible, high performance software system specifically adapted for managing renewable energy assets. It was clear from the outset that the system must be able to handle real-time data as well as providing applications that would save time and improve output.
Sennen’s first client was London Array – the largest offshore wind farm in the world at the time. They were struggling to integrate data into their operations process. Accessibility of turbines due to tidal and wave conditions was proving a big problem.
Paul Grimshaw (CTO at Sennen) was appointed to help London Array procure a solution that would meet their needs. Seeing no suitable product on the market, Sennen developed a system that could integrate tidal information, bathymetry and vessel data to help the wind farm planners decide where to send their vessels. The solution had an immediate impact on productivity. Sennen has gone on working to solve other major challenges to increase work effectiveness and safety.
In 2018, Sennen launched its Portfolio management system which is now deployed across >3GW of wind, solar, hydro, anaerobic digestion and biomass capacity.
Having managed a portfolio of renewable assets ourselves, we found it frustrating with how much time was wasted compiling reliable asset info, answering endless questions/report requests – and yet still only touching the very simplest data.
We felt it should be quick and easy to access reliable asset information on performance KPIs, budgets, component history, outages, HSE incidents and contract information.
Drawing on our experience of technical and commercial asset management in renewable energy, we built a carefully structured relational database with configurable templates of information for each technology type (wind, solar, AD etc). We devised a simple process for keeping the information updated with regular prompts to add missing data and automated validation to ensure accuracy.
As a result, our clients can make fast queries of data and be confident it is up to date.
Through the lifecycle of each asset there many pro-active and reactive actions. Unfortunately, when people leave or contractors change or an asset is sold, too often information is lost and hard work ends up being repeated.
Sennen created an events log and workflow management system as well as a specialised module for tracking contracts.
Using these elements together means that our clients do not have to worry about missing a deadline. Sennen alerts the team of upcoming milestones and due actions. In addition, a full history of work and actions is maintained for each asset and is always accessible.
As a result there are fewer costly mistakes, no duplication of work and less time spent answering questions and preparing reports.
How do you know if your software is delivering value or sitting idle? Sennen allows you to set your data targets and measure progress against it.
Sennen can validate information automatically so you can trust the data is correct.
Streamline your team so you can manage more renewable energy assets without growing your headcount.
Sennen reveals insights that will help your team take actions to maximise the value of your assets.
