On November 24, 2021, Lerta SA signed and finalized an agreement to acquire 100% of shares in the Katowice-based energy company PES Sp. z o.o. from its current owner. Thanks to the Polish energy trading license, the company will start operating in the field of green electricity trading, Power Purchase Agreements, and supply to business customers, with particular focus on prosumers already served by the company. Poland is the second market where Lerta has secured power trading rights. In September, the company obtained a license from the Hungarian authority through one of its subsidiaries.

‘This is our second acquisition on the Polish market after the Power Block acquired a year earlier. Again, taking over an existing company is a way for us to accelerate our entry into a new market segment – this time the wholesale and retail energy market’ – says Borys Tomala, founder and CEO of Lerta. – ‘Thus, our Virtual Power Plant is becoming complete on the Polish market. Thanks to our competences and access to the market, we will enable power producers and customers to maximize profits from optimizing their assets on several different markets simultaneously – capacity, energy, and balancing to name a few. – emphasizes the CEO of Lerta.

Lerta has been dealing with the aggregation of controllable loads and generation sources as part of its Virtual Power Plant for 3 years – it has been successfully participating in the Capacity Market, where it represents professional thermal power plants, large industrial consumers, and small business – Lerta’s customers are mainly small capacities – from 60 kW to 8MW. The company recently opened offices in Budapest, Bucharest, and Prague. In Hungary, it has already concluded its first contracts with energy producers, and in Romania and the Czech Republic, it expects to be granted a license in the coming days.

‘Concluded in 2020 strategic partnership with the Photon Energy Group drives our development in the segment of green energy trading in CEE countries’ – adds Borys Tomala –‘ It is a very interesting, but also difficult moment on the global energy markets. Crazy prices and high balancing costs have already caused the collapse of at least a dozen trading companies in our region. In Poland, it is also starting to become visible, although we are far from the prices that maintain on other European markets. I am glad that starting today we have the opportunity to use our proprietary VPP technology to reduce imbalance and its costs also in our home market.’

Lerta is an example of an “enertech” company, a highly technological energy company. Its activity is based on a technological platform that has been built for years, which aggregates data on energy generation and consumption in real time, predicts the level of both demand and supply, and automatically controls aggregated units.

‘The acquisition of PES means that renewable energy producers operating in Poland will soon be able to join our VPP platform and take full advantage of the most advantageous energy sales options and low balancing costs’ – says Krzysztof Drożyński, founder and CTO of Lerta. – ‘Our algorithms predict, on an ongoing basis, insolation, and consequently energy generation, which enables semi-automatic optimization of the producer’s position on the day-ahead and intraday markets. In the event of a lack of liquidity or economic profitability, we can also automatically start deliveries of the so-called energy flexibility, (e.g. reducing demand of consumers or increasing generation in controllable sources in the case of lower generation from RES than the contracted one).’

The company is not actively looking for further acquisitions, but it does not rule them out either – it is closely watching the ongoing consolidation of the industry.

Piotr Michalak

E-mail: piotr.michalak@lerta.energy

Mob. +48 697 884 559

Lerta is a company that develops modern energy services. The company helps energy consumers and producers effectively manage its generation and consumption, and thanks to the automation of supply and demand control, additionally monetize the possibility of adjusting the operation of assets to the market requirements in real time. Lerta’s actions help minimize the carbon footprint, increase green energy generation, and protect the planet. In 2016, Lerta was named one of the TOP 30 energy-related technology startups in the world by experts and investors from the Silicon Valley. In 2017, the company completed the prestigious MIT Enterprise Forum Poland acceleration program, and in 2018 PGE Ventures (subsidiary of PGE, Polish Energy Group) and ValueTech Seed invested in it. Since 2019 Lerta is one of the DSR aggregators operating on the Polish market and the only one independent of state-owned energy groups. In 2020 the company acquired Power Block, a competitive aggregator with Capacity Market contracts, and received an investment by listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, Photon Energy Group.

PES (formerly Przedsiębiorstwo “UNIMEX”) is an energy company with over 30 years of history. Established in 1989, the company holds an electricity trading license for the territory of the Republic of Poland. Historically, the company also dealt with energy distribution, metering, commercial real estate management, as well as advisory services and audits.