CEBA Member Highlight: Verse
**This interview was originally posted on CEBA’s website.
What prompted your organization to join the CEBA community?
Verse’s mission is to unlock the benefits of clean energy for organizations everywhere. We’re doing that by developing software that uses generative AI to make buying and managing clean energy faster, easier, and less expensive than it is today. CEBA’s work convening and supporting organizations interested in procuring clean power is a perfect fit for us. We’re excited to collaborate with CEBA to showcase the power of technology in accelerating and scaling corporate clean energy adoption.
What does the future of clean energy look like for your organization?
Verse’s vision of the future of clean energy is AI- and software-driven. The world is at an inflection point of AI-enabled solutions; we want to apply the capabilities of generative AI to clean power procurement.
Verse’s Aria software platform leverages this technology to help companies define their clean power goals, design the best portfolio to meet those goals, manage their clean energy assets, and verifiably report on their emissions and financial metrics.
Recent policy changes, the evolution of various regulatory and voluntary frameworks, and the increasing complexity of energy markets and clean energy assets are quickly exceeding the analytical capabilities of humans and spreadsheets. Clean energy customers will increasingly require the computing power of AI to synthesize concepts and analyze potential scenarios to develop future-proofed clean power strategies.
What has been the most interesting clean energy project during your time with your organization?
One exciting case study involved helping a company figure out what clean power procurement philosophy would best meet its needs.
This customer wanted to power their operations with clean energy, but needed to answer several detailed questions before acting.
- Location matching: Can we buy clean energy from anywhere in the country? Or from the same grid?
- Time matching: Should we match clean power on an annual basis? Monthly? Hourly?
- Emissions matching: How much greenhouse gas emissions will my clean energy purchase help avoid?
Using the Aria Goal Setting app the customer received nine possible procurement philosophies to analyze considering different permutations (e.g., 100% clean energy, carbon-matching, location-matching, and/or time-matching).
Aria uses mathematical optimization, combined with pre-loaded, 20-year hourly market forecasts to evaluate the cost, emissions, and time-matching implications of the nine scenarios.
The customer presented the outputs from Aria to their senior leadership team, which was then able to make a data-driven decision, selecting the procurement philosophy that best met their objectives while staying within budget for clean energy purchases.
By defining their clean power goals, the customer was able to move forward with confidence in their clean energy journey and is now going to market to source clean energy.
Envision a 90% carbon-free U.S. electricity system by 2030 – what is the next step toward a carbon-free energy future?
It’s hard to pick just one! There are several critical steps that need to coalesce, including streamlining interconnection processes and expanding transmission and grid infrastructure. The step we’re focused on is making clean energy procurement faster, easier, and less expensive than it is today so more organizations can access the benefits of clean energy. We are confident we can leverage powerful emerging technologies — like generative AI — to demystify this complex field and make a real difference in how organizations source and manage their power.