Our Story

Before Proa began, the co-founders of Proa had already spent years developing knowledge of the energy industry and solar in particular. Victor Depoorter had worked for a number of years on his PhD studies at Melbourne University, where he developed new techniques of solar forecasting, including night time infrared satellite forecasting techniques and the ability to determine a solar system’s set up solely from its historical generation data. Matthew Jeppesen had been a research fellow, also at Melbourne University, where he worked on an ARENA funded project “Least cost abatement in the Australia’s National Electricity Market” , which included a 2012 secondment to the AEMO modelling team on a renewable energy modelling project for the Department of Industry. In 2014, both Victor and Matthew went on another secondment to AEMO to work in the forecasting team there, where they learned a great deal challenges and potential solutions to integrate solar into the grid.

Today, Proa is a fast growing company, continuing to develop new techniques in solar forecasting, battery modelling, and techno-economic optimisation. The energy industry continues to evolve rapidly, with a large number of solar and wind projects connecting to the grid every year. Proa achieved a major milestone in 2019 with the first solar farm self-forecast approved by AEMO for dispatch. At Proa, we find it exciting to work on new technologies and algorithms in the service of an important goal: to integrate more and more clean energy sources whilst maintaining reliability and affordability. The energy transition creates interesting and important challenges, and we are lucky to work with other innovative companies to help solve them.