In March 2017, three new entrepreneurs with a great background in the world of engineering and energy launched RatedPower, a start-up that wants to make solar energy the first world source thanks to its solution pvDesign. The leader of this initiative is Andrea Barber, the winner of EDP Open Innovation and participant in the 2017 edition of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit. The Spanish CEO of RatedPower is playing an important role in a technical sector, historically covered by men.
Before building a new solar plant, a detailed study of the building area needs to be carried out. These studies take five weeks to complete. But thanks to RatedPower’s technology pvDesign, this process can now be done in less than 5 minutes. The software allows to optimize photovoltaic plants, saving time and money. The SaaS cloud-based tool allows to automate the utility-scale PV power plant feasibility analysis, design and basic engineering process making it much faster, accurate and reliable, thus boosting the efficiency of the target customer.
“If only 1 of every 200 projects studied by our software pvDesign was annually installed, the energy generated by these projects would be of 6300 GWh, which is equivalent to the electricity consumption of 1.8 million houses. This results in an annual reduction of 3 million tons of CO2 and an annual decrease of 3.7 million oil barrels”, explained Andrea Barber during an interview to the website Devdiscourse.
Bringing “diversity” in business and “sustainability” to our planet
Before founding RatedPower, Andrea Barber designed the strategy, lead the establishment and operation of a Spanish renewable energy engineering company in Latin America. After this challenge in Brazil and Chile, together with two founding partners, the young entrepreneur detected the need to manufacture a software that could optimize the design of solar plants.
The star product PvDesign was conceived to be used worldwide and the company is implementing international standards to expand globally. Currently, pvDesign from RatedPower has been used in more than 90 countries, and the software simulated more than 1.000GW. As a woman and business leader, Andrea Barber is focused on fighting for a more sustainable planet, with diversity of gender and race in business.
“Women have other strengths, which can give another type of leadership. We have more empathy, which is an advantage to build teams. My partners and I are aware of the diversity of gender and race. The more different the experiences, the more value each profile brings and the easier it is to innovate”, raised the CEO during an interview to Vogue Business.
RatedPower has received grant Phase 1 and Phase 2 from the European Innovation Council. The total Phase 2 amount was 1.506.313 €.
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.