The Green Efficiency Advantage: Virtual Data Rooms and Developing Renewable Energy Infrastructure

May 20, 2010 - by Joel Lessem

Over the last year, Firmex has been signing a significant number of renewable energy developers -  in particular solar and wind energy. As the health of the environment continues to be a growing global issue, demand for renewable energy is accelerating. Solar energy has grown at 30% per annum over the past 15 years while wind power grew close to 32% in 2009.  In 2008 some $155 Billion was invested in renewable energy up fourfold from 2004.  Investment fell 40% in 2009 due to the economic crisis though experts expect that to rebound. As Firmex, virtual data room technology, becomes more cost-effective and easy to use it is becoming increasingly useful to the renewable energy industry.

 Renewable Energy Companies are using Virtual data rooms in the following areas:

1. Finance: Renewable energy plays are capital intensive.  Raising capital for development infrastructure is a key use of Firmex.
2. Engineering, Procurement and Construction Bids (EPC Bids). Developers will contract out the EPC of various sites.   Developers request bids from engineering firms, material suppliers and construction firms on new infrastructure.  Sharing confidential documents with various parties is done through the virtual data room.
3. Acquisition and Sales of renewable energy sites. Typically they are in various stages of development and are non-operating. These assets are bought and sold between developers.  Buyers review documents in the virtual data room.
4. Acquisition of Renewable Energy Credits or RECs. Owners of RECs can claim to have purchased renewable energy.  Many US states have a requirement for companies to purchase or supply a certain amount of renewable energy.  The certificates can be traded to meet these requirements or to meet an organization’s carbon footprint goals.

Non-renewable energy production and consumption have had a tremendous impact on the environment and thus the momentum behind alternative energy development continues to build.  With that said, using Firmex, a paperless method to transmit and share large volumes of documents electronically, is suitably aligned with the industry and offers both a secure and environmentally friendly alternative to traditional methods of data transfer and review.