Renewable energy strategy consultancy Almach has launched an online renewable energy procurement platform. The RE-search portal links large corporate energy users with renewable project owners and developers. It offers a procurement tool that identifies and secures long-term renewable energy supply via corporate power purchase agreements and short-term solutions through renewable energy certificates.

For corporate buyers who require a formal market tender, the platform also offers a simplified ‘request for information’ process intended to reduce the time and cost of undertaking a formal market assessment. Almach has partnerships with South Pole and Cornwall Insight to provide data, access to REC’s and future energy price benchmarks.

Juan Pablo Cerda, managing director at Almach, said: “We identified a need to provide a clear, transparent view of renewable energy projects available around the world, whilst helping corporates reduce the costs and complexity of their clean energy sourcing and meet their sustainability and climate change policy objectives.

“The process of identifying suitable projects can be expensive and extremely lengthy and often a deal will not be concluded. RE-search is free to use and will allow corporates to filter out projects that do not meet their specific requirements, be it size, start date, technology or location. This effectively creates a shortlist of relevant projects.”

Juan Pablo Cerda of Almach said for renewable developers worldwide, “the main issue they face is successfully marketing their projects to corporate off-takers and identifying which businesses are serious buyers and which are ‘window shopping’. There is also a lack of meaningful data around buying trends available to developers, so this, coupled with direct feedback on the competitiveness of their offering, is very valuable information.”