IBM acquires Prescinto for renewable energy asset performance management

Tech giant IBM has acquired Bengaluru-based firm Prescinto, a leading provider of asset performance management (APM) software-as-a-service (SaaS) for renewables.

The acquisition will enhance capabilities of IBM Maximo Application Suite (MAS), IBM’s solution for asset lifecycle management. It will further IBM’s leadership in the energy and utility space, an industry undergoing significant transformation and seeking solutions to manage and optimise wind, solar, and other renewable energy storage assets. Water, natural gas, oil, nuclear, and other energy and utility enterprises globally already utilise IBM MAS.

The development will further enable IBM to support clients’ sustainability initiatives and net-zero goals. This allows users to track and monitor the performance of solar, wind and energy storage assets in near real-time. This also enables to identify root causes for underperformance and recommend actions to optimise generation.

For instance, a solar power plant can become less efficient over time due to accumulated dirt and debris on its panels. Renewable APM software can use visual recognition capabilities to help monitor these assets, identify issues before they become critical, and prompt the necessary actions to restore optimal efficiency. This would allow for real-time tracking of panel performance, streamline required cleaning, and enable organisations’ prompt response before energy output decreases.

Prescinto’s capabilities leverage AI to enable advanced monitoring, analytics, and automation to streamline renewable energy operations and manage clean energy and storage assets. This is IBM’s fourth acquisition of an Indian company. IBM’s last acquisition in India was in 2016, when it bought Bengaluru-based cloud-computing company Sanovi Technologies.

The company was founded in 2016 by Puneet Singh Jaggi along with Sanjay Bhasin, Ramadas C Menon and Suresh Jangra (former co-founder). It works with global customers across 14 countries with 16 GigaWatts under management. Prescinto’s APM capabilities help organisations simplify operations and maintenance to maximise ROI. It offers capabilities, including data capture, employing open-source protocols and a data governance layer.

It also offers monitoring features – for centralised visualisation of assets with high-definition maps, real-time monitoring, and custom alerts. The other features include ‘analysis’, using AI to identify losses, visualise data trends, and offer actionable recommendations to increase performance.

According to Allied Market Research, the value of the global utilities asset management market is expected to grow from $4.3 billion in 2022 to $12.4 billion in 2031, with a CAGR of 11.3 per cent.