Asset Management

When operational downtime can cost thousands in lost income per day, securing the right asset management contract is paramount.

Locogen has been providing professional asset management services for renewable energy projects since 2012. By operating as a consultancy, an installer and an investor of renewable energy assets, we believe our background gives us a unique perspective. We can see things from the client’s point of view which enables us to offer an asset management service which not only ensures the safe and proper operation of your renewable asset, but also maximises your revenue streams and boosts your return on investment. 

Our asset management service covers a wide range and scale of technologies including hydro schemes, single and multi-turbine wind sites, solar farms and biomass boilers. Our standard asset management service includes performance analysis, maintenance coordination, operational administration, regulatory compliance and financial services. Further, our asset management team can offer additional services such as PPA renewals, HV maintenance services and other market offerings as they arise, which ensures you are always maximising the value of your asset. 

With the life of a renewable asset finite, securing the right asset management package is vital.

Asset Management Overview

Locogen’s asset management team ensures assets achieve optimal returns for clients, while minimising administration overheads and ensuring regulatory compliance. This is achieved by deploying a comprehensive and proven portfolio of services. Asset management is key to ensuring the safe operation of your asset, while maximising revenue streams and return on investment.  Locogen has comprehensive service packages available for a wide range of manufacturers and project scales. We recognise that one size very rarely fits all so we provide bespoke solutions to match the needs of each client. Whether for a single turbine or large wind farm operating as part of a larger portfolio, our asset management services include:

  • Performance analysis
  • Maintenance coordination
  • Operational administration
  • Regulatory compliance
  • Financial services

Performance

We know that turbine downtime could cost as much as £3,000 per MW per day. When a 1MW turbine is hitting the manufacturer’s technical availability warranty of 95% it could still be costing upwards of £40,000 pa in lost revenue. In contrast, our managed portfolio averaged 99.4% technical availability. Every 1% of availability we can gain will be saving you around £8,000 per MW pa. Remember, manufacturers’ guarantees only cover downtime due to turbine faults. But much time can be lost due to grid or communication issues and high voltage equipment faults. Each turbine is likely to experience at least one such fault every few years and this can lead to long unwarranted downtime. Utilising our close relationships with third parties such as the DNOs, HV and communications engineers, our asset management team can expedite repairs and minimise this downtime. Constant power curve monitoring and SCADA data analysis will make sure turbine underperformance is spotted as soon as it happens and that the turbine production is optimised at all times.

Maintenance & Compliance

Continuous monitoring of performance and benchmarking against comparable assets can uncover issues before they result in turbine failure. Locogen’s asset management team can then raise the issue with the maintenance supplier and propose unscheduled or preventative maintenance to rectify the issue and avoid downtime. All downtime is recorded to allow accurate claims against the manufacturer’s turbine availability warranty. Regulatory compliance can be easily overlooked once an asset is fully commissioned. Once a turbine is operational there remain a number of mandatory requirements relevant to every site. These include the asset’s total installed capacity, planning conditions, grid connection agreement and legislative requirements (The Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002) regarding HV equipment maintenance. The regulatory compliance service passes this responsibility to Locogen, providing peace of mind that all mandatory requirements are being met.

Operational Administration & Contracts Optimisation

Our operational administration service monitors the performance of operational contracts to obtain the best value for money when the contracts require renewal. For example, for single 500kW wind turbines over the last six months, Locogen has consistently been able to secure circa £3,000 additional annual export income per site through site-specific PPA tender exercises. Locogen’s existing asset bank and market position allows us to retrieve the best PPA rates available, bringing the benefit of group purchasing power to all of our clients.

Financial Services

Many renewable energy projects are set up as Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs). these are separate legal entities, which have their own responsibilities for financial reporting, whether this be for for financiers, shareholders or statutory submissions.

Our Financial Services service is designed to deliver these responsibilities for the SPV.

We can take care of management accounts, statutory accounts, bank reporting, bookkeeping and VAT compliance. As with all of our asset management services, we can offer a bespoke financial service package to suit the specific requirements of the SPV.

Specialist Asset Management team

Locogen’s Asset Management team has extensive expertise in managing solar PV, wind and hydro sites. The multi-discipline team comprises project managers, engineers and financial specialists, whose combined expertise offers our clients a comprehensive service. A brief summary of some key team members is included below.
 

Head of Asset Management: Kayla Madlener

Before arriving to the UK, Kayla worked in the largest arts and culture establishment in Toronto, Canada. Kayla’s focus was in public programming and funding and was responsible for overseeing the creation and maintenance of ticketing and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, department finances, and maintaining relationships with partners across the city.

Since moving to Edinburgh, Kayla’s organisational abilities and communication skills have benefitted clients of all sizes. Prior to Locogen, she has years of experience in managing renewable projects, technical performance, operational contracts, and being the primary contact for queries. At Locogen, she oversees the department’s SPVS, performance analysis, regulatory compliance, health and safety, operational administration and has a niche understanding of the challenges around renewable projects. She is also an expert on the evolving PPA market to ensure the highest possible return for her clients.

Chris craven

Chris has worked in Finance for over 10 years covering a variety of different sectors including IT, Property Management, Telecommunications and Renewable Energy. He is currently studying towards his professional accountancy qualification with CIMA.

Chris started with Locogen in the Finance department working on the internal Locogen accounts and providing financial services to our external clients. Near the end of 2020 he moved into the Asset Management team to assist with our growing portfolio. In this new role he provides financial services to our asset management clients for their SPVs including: complete management accounts, statutory accounts, bank reporting, bookkeeping and VAT compliance. He is also able to assist with all finance-related queries and tasks on behalf of these clients, helping to provide a much fuller and complete service and maximising financial performance.

Laura Strachan

Laura has been with Locogen just over a year, working as part of the Asset Management team as the Asset Management Coordinator. This role involves contract administration and management, performance analysis, client communication and supporting the rest of the team with both the technical and financial day-to-day operations. She has always been very interested in renewable energy and joined Locogen just after finishing her Masters in Edinburgh.

Nicolas Vass

Prior to working at Locogen, Nicola worked for a small company called Accountability Edinburgh which provided payroll, bookkeeping and management account services to small businesses across Edinburgh. She worked there while finishing off her HND in accounting at Edinburgh College, and she worked for a variety of clients including charities, app developers, and design companies while at Accountability Edinburgh. After working there for three years, she moved to Locogen. She first worked in the finance team, where she primarily did the bookkeeping for the Locogen Group and for the SPVs.

As time went on, Nicola took on the responsibility for payroll and started helping with the management accounts and doing VAT returns for the Locogen Group and the SPVs. As Locogen grew, the responsibility for the financial services for the SPVs moved from the finance team to the asset management team and the payroll was outsourced to JCCA. She continued to work in the finance team, helping with the management accounts, doing bank reconciliations, payment runs, and more for the Locogen Group. After that, she was offered the opportunity to join the asset management team to help them with financial services and other finance related tasks. For a while, she worked between the finance team and the asset management team, however, in March 2022, she moved entirely to the asset management team.

Paul Sloan

Paul has worked in renewable energy and the wind industry for over 13 years. During this time, Paul has worked as a wind turbine technician, senior authorised person (SAP), authorising engineer, site manager and asset manager. He previously worked for B9 Energy, EDF Energy Renewables and Vestas. As Technical Asset Manager for our wind portfolio at Locogen, Paul uses his industry experience and technical knowledge to liaise between the turbine O&M and our clients.

Paul works across our Asset Management wind portfolio, advising clients on all aspects of technical reporting, performance analysis, operational administration, and maintenance co-ordination. Paul also oversees Locogen’s own HV O&M services. This is an important part of our expanded asset management package and something which we are proud to offer to our clients.

Scroll to Top