Que: Please tell our readers about Solytic? What kind of services does it offer for the Solar PV Industry?

Ans: Solytic's software increases the yield and therefore decreases time to amortization of PV systems, by interconnecting potentials to solutions.

We translate data into actionable insights and offer the best offer from the market to increase the PV system's yield. Our digital advisor answers questions throughout 40 categories, such as cleaning, repowering, battery, maintenance, financing or insurance. Solytic is making solar easy for everyone because we directly connect demand and supply by using PV data.

We offer low-priced hardware-independent monitoring to connect to any PV system without installing new hardware. Our interface includes other features such as AI analytics and a marketplace.

Que: What are the recent projects undertaken and in the pipeline?

Ans: We managed to pass 100.000 PV-plants connected in 42 countries only two years after launch. This includes several white labels for inverter or data logger companies, as well as large portfolios in the commercial & industrial segment. Our pipeline includes some interesting partnerships, which we will announce in the next couple of months. By 2023, we want to hit 1 million PV systems connected.

Que: Recently, Vattenfall and EWE invested in Solytic. Please tell us more about this development?

Ans: Vattenfall has been a partner from the very start. The Swedish energy company invested 3 million Euros right after Solytic was launched in autumn 2017. We announced our latest funding round in February 2020, where Vattenfall invested again together with EWE, another energy company from Germany. Both strategic investors are transforming towards renewables and use our solution to manage their PV-portfolios. Having two major energy companies as investors gives Solytic the power to grow faster in the European markets.

Que: What kind of present trends do we see in the Solar PV services?

Ans: While CAPEX has been decreasing over time, OPEX becomes more relevant. Today's manual processes and costs of control rooms or between PV systems and service providers need to be heavily reduced to support the growth of solar. Automation is key, especially when it comes to finding potentials and offering solutions.

Que: According to a report, the market for PV monitoring & control is set to grow at 12.5% CAGR by 2028. What kind of opportunities does this forecast offer for the PV Monitoring & Control sector?

Ans: Yes, the market keeps on growing faster and faster due to political, environmental and social reasons. Adding millions of PV systems means greater opportunities for anyone offering good products and services. That's why we believe in our platform strategy to support PV-owners as a first-level-support to make smart, data-driven choices in this highly fragmented and growing market.

Que: In recent times, the industry is transforming technologically with the arrival of Industry 4.0, Big Data, etc. What kind of benefits does it provide for the Solar PV industry? How does the future look like for the same?

Ans: Industry 4.0 / IoT and Big Data enable technical assets such as PV plants to communicate and scream if something is not working well. If the world wants to switch to renewables, the PV industry needs to focus on three things: decreasing CAPEX, building PV systems faster and more reliable, and decreasing OPEX, meaning humans only do jobs that cannot be done by machines or algorithms. Supervising PV portfolios with humans in control rooms need to stop. These highly qualified and expensive workers need to focus on adding value instead of sitting in front of screens.

Que: How has the European Market performed in terms of acceptance of digital monitoring and analysis as one of the vital aspects in present times? Any plans to enter into Asian Markets like India?

Ans: Solytic started in Germany, a quite mature market with a total of 1.7 million PV systems installed throughout the past 15-20 years. We saw a lot of different hardware from inverter manufacturers and data logger companies installed. Our customers used to monitor their portfolios with up to 15 different solutions and lots of manual work being attached to using these solutions. Other European markets have the same problem.

Since Solytic offers a Software-as-a-Service, we can offer our solution worldwide without physically entering a market with employees and renting offices. This gives Solytic a cost advantage, which we forward to our customers, offering a low-priced solution. Today, we monitor more than 100.000 PV-plants in 42 countries, having customers all over the world - also in India and other Asian countries.

Que: Being 2 years old in the Industry, what future do you see for the company in the upcoming times?

Ans: The first 2 years have been very exciting. We started from scratch, built the software and scaled it. With our series A funding, we can grow even faster. We aim for 1 million PV-plants by 2023, supplying a best-in-class product to our customers to increase the yield of each connected PV system.