Smart Energy Finances Weekly: Elia Group outlook at negative & Adani’s smart metering subsidiary

This week’s edition of Smart Energy Finances – the first of 2023 – sees S&P Global downgrade Elia Group and Eurogrid’s outlook from stable to negative while Indian transmission company Adani Group announces BSML – a smart metering subsidiary.

Also on the radar:

• An energy data analytics acquisition by Tigo Energy;
• An IoT analysis platform acquisition by smart energy tech developer SolarEdge Technologies;
• And a scale-up investment from the EIC into Energy Dome, hoping to expand its long duration energy storage offering.

Elia Group and Eurogrid’s outlook down to negative

Independent financial ratings, benchmarks, analytics and data provider S&P Global (S&P) has revised Elia Group’s and Eurogrid’s outlook from stable down to negative.

Although their credit ratings remain unchanged at BBB+, the negative outlook – according to Elia Group - reflects S&P’s view that their adjusted FFO (Funds From Operations) to Debt could decline below S&P’s guidance for its ratings due to the recently announced CAPEX update as well as the revised financial policy targets.

Meanwhile, the long-term credit rating of Elia Transmission Belgium (ETB) of BBB+ was affirmed with a stable outlook; their financial policy thus remains unchanged.

Elia Group will continue to finance its capex plan in Belgium and Germany in line with the current ‘gearing’ ratios. By doing so, the capex acceleration is expected to have a more prominent effect at Eurogrid than ETB, which has caused the Group to revise financial policy for both entities.

Have you read:
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Adani launches smart metering arm

According to Business Standard reportage, Adani Transmission has formed a subsidiary, BEST Smart Metering Ltd (BSML), to undertake their smart meter business. The subsidiary is incorporated in India, although has yet to commence business operations.

The subsidiary comes as the country's government launched the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), which aims to support the discoms with operations and financial stability by providing result-linked financial assistance to strengthen supply infrastructure based on meeting pre-qualifying criteria and achieving basic minimum benchmarks.

With an estimated outlay of Rs1.5 trillion ($18 billion) and gross budgetary support of Rs230 billion ($2.8 billion), 250 million prepaid smart meters are targeted to be installed during the scheme period from FY2021-22 to FY2025-26.

Further, under the RDSS, as many as 173.4 million prepaid smart meters, 4.9 million distribution transmission meters and 168,085 feeder meters have been sanctioned across 23 States and 40 discoms.

Tigo acquires energy analytics company FSIGHT

Tigo Energy, Inc., which provides intelligent solar and energy storage solutions, has acquired FSIGHT, an energy data analytics software company based in Hod HaSharon, Israel.

The acquisition sees the former expands its ability to leverage energy consumption and production data for solar energy producers, adding a prediction platform that provides system performance data, from the grid down to the module level.

As a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company, FSIGHT gives utilities, IPPs (Independent Power Providers), solar assets owners, EPCs (Engineering, Procurement and Construction firms), and investors high-fidelity visibility into the performance of their solar energy systems, the energy demand served by those systems, and accurate predictive data about the same.

Backed by five patents and patents pending, as well as a low operations cost per endpoint business model, FSIGHT infrastructure aims to enable accurate behind-the-meter energy insights that scale quickly for Distributed Energy Resource (DER) projects of all sizes.

For smart meter utilities, this means more accurate forecasting for load, generation and pricing dynamics, as well as portfolio composition and the ability to automate customer clustering.

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SolarEdge acquires IoT-based Hark Systems

SolarEdge Technologies, which develops smart energy technology, has entered definitive agreement to acquire the entire share capital of Hark Systems, a UK-based company offering a flexible Software as a Service (SaaS) Internet of Things (IoT) platform.

Hark’s system aims to allow enterprises and asset operators to connect, analyse and optimise industrial assets and energy in their commercial sites.

The acquisition of Hark is expected to enable SolarEdge to offer its Commercial and Industrial (C&I) customers expanded capabilities in energy management and connectivity, including identification of potential energy savings, detection of anomalies in assets’ energy consumption, and optimisation of energy usage and carbon emissions through load orchestration and storage control.

The acquisition is subject to certain customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals and is expected to close during the second quarter of 2023.

Energy Dome’s expansive investment

Energy Dome, a long duration energy storage solution developer, has been awarded €17.5 million ($18.5 million) in funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC), the largest amount made available by the programme.

The EIC Accelerator is a funding programme to identify, fund and scale-up breakthrough innovations in strategic areas, including energy storage.

The investment will be made through the EIC Fund, owned by the European Commission to make grants and direct equity investments in companies with promising clean tech solutions.

The EIC Fund joins other strategic investors, including Barclays, 360 Capital, CDP Venture Capital SGR and Novum Capital Partners, that have invested a total of $25 million in Energy Dome.

For the latest updates and announcements coming from the energy sector, make sure to follow Smart Energy Finances, our weekly column on the energy industry's finance and investments.

Cheers,
Yusuf Latief,
Content Producer, Smart Energy International

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