Skyfri Group, a Norway-based cleantech company, has announced the acquisition of Avi Solar, the operations and maintenance (O&M) services provider for solar power projects in India.

The financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Avi Solar Energy is an independent O&M service provider for ground-mounted and rooftop solar projects. The company has provided O&M services to over 2.5 GW of ground-mounted projects and more than 135 MW of rooftop solar to date. Avi Solar’s asset management includes insurance, revenue, warranty and spares, liaison works, remote monitoring and analysis, prediction, and project auditing management services.

Through the acquisition, Skyfri aims to bring over 500 MW of additional solar projects for some of the largest renewable asset investors and owners, such as KKR, Cleantech Solar, Bosch, and Honda, onto its platform called Skyfri Intelligence.

Backed by leading climate investors SpeedInvest, Singularity, and Link Venture Capital, Skyfri maintains portfolios of solar assets from the inception of a project to the end of its asset lifecycle.

The cleantech firm manages solar assets by merging firmware, software, and technology solutions that are original equipment manufacturer (OEM)-agnostic and can be deployed on any solar asset regardless of size, installation, or location. It uses technology to track root causes of downtime during production and evaluates energy losses in real-time while all tasks are performed and are accessible into one cloud platform, making it more efficient for clients.

The solar-asset management technology developed by Skyfri also introduces an instant alarm system for operational personnel, consolidating former siloes such as billing, invoicing, contracting, maintenance management with other crucial tasks.

Skyfri CEO Pratik Ghoshal said, “The acquisition of Avi Solar is part of a strategy to consolidate the O&M industry globally and automate most of the tasks that are manual today. For example, billing and invoices are done by one software, while another monitors and reports, and a third company does the actual O&M onsite. Skyfri integrates all these verticals into one single source of truth and one complete digital platform. The scalability of our technology makes it available for several clients, at a reasonable rate, so that everyone, regardless of size, can optimize their production.”

According to Mercom Capital’s Annual and Q4 2021 Solar Funding and M&A Report, M&A activity in the solar sector was the highest ever with 126 transactions in 2021 compared to 62 in 2020. There were 43 solar M&A transactions in Q4 2021, compared to 29 in Q3 2021.