Licensed electricity trader Discovery Green has launched a proprietary renewable-energy operating system that combines AI with the larger group’s actuarial expertise to offer its business clients a tailored way of deploying renewables to further reduce their emissions and lower electricity costs.

Discovery Green CEO Andre Nepgen says EnergyOS has been designed to address what he describes as the “renewables trilemma” faced by businesses of maximising savings, reducing emissions and managing financial risk.

The company has sought to address these trade-offs by reframing renewables procurement as a risk rather than as a commodity, which has allowed it to apply actuarial techniques to renewables as an asset class.

Head of Actuarial and R&D Dan Ginsberg argues that the renewables market presents many of the same challenges found in markets such as insurance and financial services, where Discovery has been active for 30 years.

“Generation fluctuates, demand is unpredictable and future market conditions remain uncertain.

“EnergyOS brings actuarial thinking to these challenges so that renewable energy can be managed with greater sophistication,” Ginsberg explains.

The homegrown solution has been built using a rich vein of data, including over 10 000 consumption simulations, 87-million generation simulations, and over 200 000 future market-price points.

This information has been employed using AI to create a dynamic forecasting model, which is in turn fed into a model that is able to customise the solution to a specific client’s needs by selecting the best combination of solar, wind and storage.

A further model allocates the energy to ensure that the client’s environmental and commercial objectives are met, without increasing financial and operational risks.

Nepgen reports that internal stress-testing has demonstrated that the solution is able to tailor-make solutions for a diverse range of clients, from farmers to miners, that yielded significant costs savings and emission reductions.

EnergyOS, he reports, will be rolled out to all existing business clients during the course of 2026 and is immediately available to new business clients.

In addition a public-interactive tool based on EnergyOS has been released, enabling clients or prospective clients to test various technology and pricing scenarios.

Nepgen says the tool has also started to change Discovery Green’s own internal thinking with regards to procurement, as it is able to offer visibility of the true value of the various assets it has in its portfolio, as well as those being considered for investment.

Discovery Green, which was launched three years ago, is one of South Africa’s largest energy traders with over 740 MW under construction, and with more than 50 business customers.