Expectation–Reality Gap

“Off the shelf”, “plug and play”, “out-of-the-box” are common terms and almost ubiquitously appropriate in the world of office or home computing.  But in the world of energy management and analytics software, they are rarely used, likely because they are incorrect descriptions of the situation. These terms communicate that a solution requires very little, if any, integration, onboarding, or calibration. However, the wide gap between these expectations and the painful reality has been felt very tangibly within the DER industry.  Consequently a healthy, but solvable, skepticism has been fostered.

Despite the increasing need for purpose fit software to manage the complexities of distributed energy assets, the fear of onboarding can be so great that organizations who have a budget and a need, still opt for an “if it ain’t broke” mentality. We’re here to quell that fear.

Onboarding a new platform into your existing workflow should not be a barrier to progress – for the distributed energy ecosystem to realize its full potential, it must not be. Most DER businesses have already created large repositories of data, documentation, financial information, project notes and contacts, often using disparate tools with corresponding multiple sources of information and updates being required.  The opportunity is to transform your business by leveraging digital tools that streamline and accelerate the way you manage, develop, finance, and optimize your DERs. 

We understand that data standardization, quality, security, ownership, and integration are top of mind for asset managers, developers, financiers, O&Ms, data scientists and grid operators. We understand these needs deeply and we have developed an antidote for these headaches within Ecosuite. 

We’re also building a network of partnerships and advocating for industry standards that will massively reduce data friction among all parties involved in DER. It’s a deeper longer version of this story, one that we’re telling in our “No Silos, No Friction” blog series.

The Antidote – Ecosuite’s Onboarding Philosophy

The DER industry deserves solutions commensurate with its needs. The landscape of DER SaaS products must shift to accommodate the increasingly dynamic nature of distributed energy assets. This era of customer-centric solutions in DER must prioritize user experience, act on user data to provide insight, foster collaboration, and ultimately, accelerate distributed energy.

Ecosuite is ushering in this era of customer-centric solutions with open arms (and open source architecture) to support the integral work of accelerating distributed energy resources. Specifically, this means we will:

• Iterate to account for the evolving needs of our clients
• Nurture a community of shared ideas and software within public GitHub repositories
• Serve as an educational resource for clients and the broader DER ecosystem (SolarOne Partnership)

Ecosuite also offers a full service onboarding experience to our partners because we refuse to let a burdensome, painful task slow the clean energy transition.  In addition to our team of highly skilled business leaders, DER industry experts and software engineers, we also leverage automation tools enhanced with STEVIE (Ecosuite’s resident and role-specific LLM) to provide a fast, comprehensive and soon to be fully automated onboarding experience. 

On day one, after your new account is activated, our team will onboard all of your data so you can get straight to the end result.  Once your data has been fully ingested, the results will flow.  Results that include improved communication efficiency, reduced soft costs, more informed investment decisions, and the ability to analyze, optimize, train and above all, accelerate distributed energy.

After Onboarding

We expect (and hope) that you’ll have questions long after you’ve integrated Ecosuite, and we’ve created support systems that cater to that directly. Even with our “starter” subscription package, you’ll receive 4 months dedicated training and tech support, including monthly 1-on-1’s and iterative feedback sessions.

What’s more important still – is ensuring that you and your organization realize value while using Ecosuite: What this will look like:

• Eliminating source of truth confusion
• Eliminating duplicated data entry tasks
• Eliminating contractual obligation uncertainty
• Eliminating the need to manually inform people (decision makers are fully empowered)
• Increased transparency reduces transaction times

Of course getting here takes more than just organized data. It takes an understanding of the desired outputs and results unique to your organization – and clarity on the ways in which Ecosuite can help you to produce those results. Our priority is to help your team get there fast, with org specific demos, documentation, communication channels and recommendations. As a team we work hard to understand what you need and we translate this understanding to ensure you understand how to leverage your new tools.

This is the nature of Ecosuite afterall; collaborative, frictionless, and accelerated.

Yes, traditional approaches to onboarding are hard work, Ecosuite now offers a path forward. Let us unlock your opportunity using our own expertise, AI-powered tools, and our dedication to customer experience.  Ecosuite enables you to accelerate the clean energy transition.