IBM Acquires Prescinto, Expands Into Renewable Energy Space

IBM acquires Digital Renewables company – Prescinto, an asset performance management (APM) and a software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider. This acquisition will allow Prescinto leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to enable monitoring, analytics, and automation to streamline renewable energy operations and manage clean energy and storage assets.

The Bangalore-based digital company offers solution to organizations that are increasingly turning to alternative energy sources like wind, solar, and energy storage to help reduce emissions and lower energy costs. It can be daunting to effectively manage and maximize the performance of high-tech devices like turbines, solar panels and inverters, which generate power from renewable energy assets. In addition, environmental factors like weather and debris can contribute to reducing energy output, system effectiveness, and system uptime.

The acquisition of Prescinto can help the company enhance the capabilities IBM Maximo Application Suite (MAS), IBM’s solution for asset lifecycle management. Moreover, it can further IBM’s role in the energy and utility space, an industry undergoing transformation and seeking solutions to manage and optimize wind, solar, and other renewable energy storage assets. Water, natural gas, oil, nuclear, and other energy and utility enterprises globally already utilize IBM MAS.

The acquisition can enable IBM to support clients’ sustainability initiatives and net-zero goals, allowing users to track and monitor the performance of solar, wind and energy storage assets in near real-time; identify root causes for underperformance; and recommend actions to optimize generation.

For example, 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 organizations’ prompt response before energy output decreases.

About The Company

Prescinto, founded in 2016 and headquartered in Bangalore, India, works with and services global customers across 14 countries with 16 GigaWatts under management. Prescinto’s APM capabilities help organizations simplify operations and maintenance to maximize ROI. It offers robust capabilities including:

• data capture – employing open-source protocols and a data governance layer
• monitoring features – for centralized visualization of assets with high-definition maps, real-time monitoring, and custom alerts
• analysis – using AI to identify losses, visualize data trends, and offer actionable recommendations to increase performance
• action prompts – facilitating efficient management and deployment of site teams to repair and maintain assets

IBM MAS is an integrated asset lifecycle management (ALM) solution for asset monitoring, management, predictive maintenance, and reliability that uses AI, IoT, and analytics to optimize performance, extend the life of assets, and reduce operational downtime and costs.