The renewable energy sector is entering a new phase of growth, one defined not just by greater generation capacity, but by increasing complexity. AI, IoT, energy storage, hydrogen, and smarter grid infrastructure are creating new opportunities to improve performance, reduce costs, and unlock value. But as renewable portfolios scale, so too does the operational burden behind them: fragmented data, complex financial structures, expanding supplier networks, long-life assets, and rising demands for transparent reporting. The businesses best positioned to capture the next wave of growth will be those that strengthen the infrastructure beneath the innovation. From creating an AI-ready data foundation to scaling finance, procurement, payables and asset management, the right digital backbone can turn complexity into a competitive advantage.
As an Infor Gold Partner with over 40 years of implementation experience, TouchstoneEnergy has spent decades delivering and supporting Infor SunSystems Cloud, while building integrated financial management landscapes around it with complementary solutions such as Proactis, Yooz, Timextender, and Octave Attune for energy businesses across the UK and beyond. That hands-on delivery experience puts us right at the intersection of financial management and asset management — the two disciplines this next phase of growth depends on. Here’s how each solution maps onto the trends reshaping the Renewable Energy sector.
1. AI integration needs clean data before it needs algorithms
AI has boosted solar energy efficiency by 20%, as seen in Google’s collaboration with DeepMind, whilst predictive maintenance systems reduce downtime by up to 70% by detecting early signs of equipment wear and failure. These systems enable renewable energy operators to achieve operational savings. But every one of those gains depends on the underlying data being trustworthy, current, and joined up. Most renewable energy businesses don’t have one system of truth; they have SCADA platforms, asset registers, ERP, procurement, and spreadsheets – all speaking slightly different languages.
Timextender exists precisely for this problem. It automates the unglamorous but essential work of data integration, preparation and governance. It turns fragmented operational and financial data into a single, AI-ready foundation. Before a business can meaningfully apply AI to forecasting, dispatch optimisation or predictive maintenance, it needs the plumbing sorted, and that’s the layer Timextender is built to solve.
2. Scaling capacity means scaling finance operations too
Renewable energy investments set another record in the first half of 2025, rising 10% from the same period of last year to reach $386 billion, according to BloombergNEF. Growth at that pace tends to outrun finance teams first — more entities, more currencies, more projects to report on, more complexity in consolidation.
Infor SunSystems Cloud is designed for exactly this kind of multi-entity, multi-currency growth. As renewable portfolios expand across sites, jurisdictions and ownership structures, Infor SunSystems gives finance teams a single, flexible ledger that scales with the business rather than becoming a bottleneck, with the reporting depth needed to satisfy investors, lenders and regulators as portfolios grow.
3. Storage, hydrogen and long-life assets demand disciplined asset management
Storage is forecast to reach nearly USD 482 billion by 2029, and electrolyser and hydrogen infrastructure is scaling fast behind it, according to IDC Research. What all of this has in common is that it’s capital-intensive, long-lived, physical infrastructure — batteries, electrolysers, turbines, inverters that must be maintained precisely to protect performance and asset value over decades.
This is Octave Attune EAM territory. As renewable businesses diversify beyond solar and wind into storage and hydrogen assets, the discipline of structured maintenance planning, condition monitoring and asset lifecycle management becomes a genuine competitive differentiator the difference between an asset that hits its 25-year performance curve and one that quietly underperforms it.
4. Grid integration and IoT mean more suppliers, more contracts, more invoices
Grid interconnection is now described as the sector’s biggest constraint, and IoT adoption is accelerating fast, with growing shares of renewable energy organisations using connected sensors for performance monitoring and climate tracking. Every one of those trends pulls in more suppliers: grid connection specialists, hardware vendors, monitoring platforms, calibration and inspection contractors.
That’s a procurement and payables problem as much as an engineering one. Proactis gives renewable energy businesses control over an increasingly complex supplier base — sourcing, contract management and purchase-to-pay visibility across dozens or hundreds of vendors, so growth in supplier complexity doesn’t quietly erode margin through maverick spend or duplicated contracts.
On the payables side, Yooz automates invoice capture and approval, which matters more than ever as transaction volumes climb with every new site, supplier, and grid connection. AI-powered invoice processing removes the manual bottleneck that so often becomes the hidden cost of rapid expansion, freeing finance teams to focus on the reporting and analysis growth demands.
5. Decentralisation raises the bar on transparency and reporting
Microgrids, peer-to-peer energy trading and blockchain-enabled transparency all point the same direction: renewable energy is becoming more decentralised, and stakeholders such as investors, regulators, and corporate offtakersare asking for more granular, verifiable reporting in return. Renewable energy certificate tracking and ESG disclosure are no longer nice-to-haves; they’re baseline expectations.
This is where the whole stack works together rather than in isolation. Clean, integrated data (Timextender) feeding a robust financial core (SunSystems), with full visibility over procurement (Proactis), automated payables (Yooz) and asset performance (Octave Attune), is what makes credible, audit-ready ESG and financial reporting possible at speed rather than a scramble assembled from spreadsheets every quarter.
Meet the TouchstoneEnergy team on the road
These trends are conversations we’re already having across the UK’s renewable energy sector, and our specialist Energy team, Syed Bokhari and Louisa Thompson, would love to continue them in person. Over the coming months, TouchstoneEnergy will be exhibiting at three major RenewableUK events:
- Onshore Wind Conference 2026 — Edinburgh International Conference Centre, 1–2 September 2026
- Floating Offshore Wind 2026 — P&J Live, Aberdeen, 7–8 October 2026
- Future Energy Wales 2026 — ICC Wales, Newport, 3–4 November 2026
At each event, our Energy sector specialists will be on hand to demonstrate how Infor SunSystems Cloud, Octave Attune, Proactis, Yooz, and Timextender work together to give renewable energy organisations the control, visibility, and scalability this next phase of growth demands. If you’re attending, we would welcome the chance to talk through your current systems, upcoming projects, or plans for finance and operational improvement.
