Eurowind Energy & WorkPoint 365
As an investor in the development, construction and management of wind-, sun-, and hybrid energy parks, Eurowind Energy must cater to many stakeholders with both technical and economical operations of more than 180 wind turbine projects - and that requires a reliable and solid software platform.
Eurowind Energy is a privately owned Danish company that develops, acquires, operates, and sells wind turbine- and solar parks projects all over the world. The company was established in 2006, and the steadily increasing development in the amount of projects and employees they have, is testament to an ambitious company that operates with structured processes and plans. Yet, in order to stay on top of the rapidly increasing number of projects, a flexible and reliable software platform to manage all projects became a must.
Many requirements – one system
Project Coordinator at Eurowind Energy, Emilia Maria Weiling, emphasises the need for one IT system that can handle everything related to a wind turbine project. When they implemented their WorkPoint solution in 2012, they analysed their requirements for a certain level of structure and a full scale overview of processes. All their wind turbine projects are created as independent companies, but are often times related in some aspects. In their WorkPoint solution, they now have one single site for each of their 180 projects, which is divided into 11 folders with all types of data included, for example:
- The number of wind turbines in any given project.
- All technical documents and documentation.
- Power sales agreements.
- All involved stakeholders, such as technicians, controllers, and owners.
- Everything related to finance and budgets.
- Insurance and legal documents.
- And much, much more.
There are many documents to keep track of, but because of the architecture of WorkPoint, it’s quick to search for things, find them, and share them with relevant parties. Examples of this may be that technical documentation or legal documents are required for a due diligence.
Output equals input
WorkPoint is at the heart of the knowledge platform that Eurowind Energy's 80 employees, divided into the main business and three foreign subsidiaries, are working on. Therefore, all new employees are taught the structure of the system during their onboarding. They learn of the importance of managing data correctly as well as the duty to update information, emphasises IT coordinator Kim Moberg, who sees a clear advantage in having one central platform.
We have chosen WorkPoint to be the knowledge bank where everything should be found, so all numbers and values must be included in there. Data is critical for us, and once the right information is in the system, we can automatically filter and drag exactly the lists we need. Our business is such that we need information related to the technical and operational company information as well as finance and relations.
If giving an example of how data across projects and wind turbines is often times used, it will clearly indicate the necessity for a solid and central platform to manage it.
The power is sold to electricity companies, but if the wind speed is high they can choose to close the turbines to balance out the electricity grid. If that is the case, wind turbine owners must be compensates for this, therefore, a calculation must be done by Eurowind Energy to see what each closed down turbine could have earned from the given high wind speed, if they were running.
From their WorkPoint solution across all projects, they can now extract that data directly into an Excel sheet and easily calculate the lost production. It's both efficient and time-saving, according to Kim Moberg.
Workflows and stakeholders
According to Project Coordinator, Emilia, Eurowind Energy makes a living from having a clear handle on both the technical, legal and financial aspect of the wind turbine projects. And with the large and increasing volume of projects, they have specifically developed modules with workflows, and an annual wheel of activities that ensure that everything is done on time.
For example:
- Technical reports.
- VAT settlements.
- Half-yearly and annual accounts.
- Reports.
- And much, much more.
At the end of the year, it is easy to see that everything has been done. In addition, another special module Eurowind Energy has in their WorkPoint solution is their relations module, which helps them with optimal planning of 180 general meetings yearly. Also, through the relations module, they can create and export lists and see who is involved in which projects and thereby plan efficiently and accordingly.
For each project, rules and checklists have been set up in relation to what is legally required and what has been agreed upon with investors. It requires a huge overview, and we want to give the best possible service to our investors, banks and accountants. The relationship module is of course also connected to the investor portal, where investors can access all accounts and agreements on their relevant wind turbine projects via one log-in.
For Emilia and Kim, the optimisation in their WorkPoint solution continues, because just as all the power in Europe is connected via networks, WorkPoint connects all soft data at Eurowind Energy.
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