RatedPower Promised the EIC Accelerator Solar Design: The Record

RatedPower, a Madrid software company founded in 2017, sold a cloud tool called pvDesign that automates the feasibility study, layout and basic engineering of utility-scale solar plants. In the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2 cut-off of 3 April 2019, it was one of the Spanish companies selected, as the only beneficiary of its project, according to the European Commission's list of selected companies. The grant only award paid an EU contribution of €1,506,312.50 towards a €2,151,875 project that ran from 1 September 2019 to 31 August 2021, according to CORDIS. The application promised a tool that would cut design work to "max 1h" and reduce errors "from 10% to 3.5%".

The company kept that promise in the narrow sense: the modules it said it would build appear in its final report and in its product today. The bigger story came after the grant. About a year after the project closed, the American energy software company Enverus bought RatedPower, according to PV Tech and TechCrunch. The Madrid company still exists as Enverus Ratedpower SL.

Where RatedPower Stands Now

RatedPower is a subsidiary of Enverus. The Spanish register shows Enverus Energia LLC as sole shareholder from August 2022, the founders and Seaya Capital leaving the board in the same month, and the name changing from Rated Power SL to Enverus Ratedpower SL in October 2024, according to the BORME entries collected by empresia and North Data. Andrea Barber, the chief executive at the time of the sale, left the company's administration in August 2024. In September 2026 the register recorded a merger in which Enverus Ratedpower SL absorbed Enverus Spain SL, a group company founded in 2015 as Datagenic Spain SL; the Madrid entity is the one that survived, both sources show.

The business is still trading under its own brand. Its website, which presents it as part of Enverus, now sells site analysis, layout, energy yield, earthworks, battery storage and substation design modules. In February 2026 it published a renewable energy trends report built on "more than 64,000 projects" designed on the platform, representing over 5.1 TW of simulated capacity, as reported by Energías Renovables. At the time of the sale the company counted 20,000 projects, according to PV Tech. Both are the company's own figures.

The Technology: Weeks of Engineering in Minutes

Before a utility-scale solar plant is built, developers run feasibility studies, draw a layout of panel rows and inverters, size cables and transformers and estimate energy yield and cost. RatedPower's CORDIS objective describes this as work that consumes "valuable resources of engineer-man-hours" and that the 2021 report says took weeks. pvDesign runs in the browser: the user sets the site boundary, equipment and constraints, and the software generates the layout, the electrical design, the yield simulation and the engineering documents automatically, and can compare many configurations.

The difference from established tools is the scope of automation, not the physics. Yield simulators model energy output from a design that an engineer has drawn; pvDesign draws the design itself. The company claimed in its application that no other product produced "automatically production and financial reports along with all the necessary engineering documentation". That claim could not be independently verified. The company's own claims for speed have changed over time: "max 1h" in the 2019 objective, and weeks reduced "to minutes" in the final report.

What the EIC Project Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The Phase 2 grant followed a €50,000 SME Instrument Phase 1 feasibility study from May to August 2018, according to CORDIS. That study's report set the long-range goals: "50% market share, €30 million cumulative revenues and 15 direct employees by 2024". The Phase 2 project itself was more concrete. It planned topographical and financial analysis tools, automatic design of the substation that connects a plant to the grid, a new software architecture, stronger cybersecurity and a pre-commercialisation plan.

The final periodic report describes each of these as done: a function that removes panel structures from slopes above a user-set limit and calculates earthworks, a CAPEX and LCOE calculator with a user price database, a tool that designs the step-up substation and generates its drawings and reports, a rebuilt back end and front end, a security control model developed with the cybersecurity team of Rey Juan Carlos University, and a simulation cluster able to run "hundreds of simulations at the same time". It also reports 595 demos and a rise from 35 to 95 customers during the programme, and a third-party certification of the energy model, without naming the certifier. CORDIS publishes the report for the second period only, and lists no deliverables or publications. The project closed on its planned end date.

1. Topographical and earthworks toolsDeliveredDescribed in the final report; earthworks module sold on the website.
2. Financial analysis (CAPEX, LCOE)DeliveredCAPEX and LCOE tool in the final report.
3. Substation designDeliveredStep-up substation tool in the final report; substation engineering module on the website.
4. New architecture and cybersecurityDeliveredRebuilt back end, front end and security control model, per the final report.
5. Commercial uptakeDelivered35 to 95 customers (self-reported); customer list of Iberdrola, Engie, BayWa, AES, Shell and others per Capital Riesgo.
6. €30M cumulative revenue and 50% market share by 2024UnverifiedNo revenue or market share figures are public.

The Money and the Sale

RatedPower's only disclosed venture round came two months after the project ended. Seaya Ventures led it in October 2021 as sole financial investor with €5.3 million, according to Seaya; Capital Riesgo reported the round at €5 million, with US-based investors taking part. The register shows the matching capital increases, from €20,000 to €28,547 of share capital, inscribed in December 2021.

Enverus announced the purchase on 14 September 2022. All shareholders, the founders and Seaya included, sold their stakes, Seaya says. Neither side disclosed a price in the announcements carried by Energy Global, POWER Magazine and PV Tech. El Referente reported a price of €60 million, citing El Confidencial; no second independent source for that figure could be found. At the sale RatedPower had more than 80 employees and 1,400 users.

The filed accounts are not free to read. Empresia lists 135 employees and annual sales "superior a 2.500.000 euros" for Enverus Ratedpower SL, and shows deposited accounts for 2020 to 2024, without public figures for revenue or results. Whether the 2024 target of €30 million in cumulative revenue was met cannot be checked from public sources. The headcount, from 15 planned employees by 2024 to more than 80 at the sale, is well above the plan.

Why Europe Should Care

The EU Solar Energy Strategy, adopted in May 2022 under REPowerEU, set targets of over 320 GW of solar PV by 2025 and "at least 600 GW by 2030", according to the European Commission. Every one of those gigawatts has to be designed first, which is the work RatedPower's software automates.

RatedPower is also a case of EU-funded technology passing to a non-European owner. The EIC paid 70% of the project that built the substation, earthworks and financial modules, and within a year of the project's end the company was sold to a US group. The company remains registered in Madrid, and in 2026 it absorbed another Enverus company in Spain.

The Verdict

RatedPower, Enverus and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.