ANTARES Digital Platform

The energy transition towards a sustainable production and consumption model is only possible through a complete transformation of society as a whole. This change towards the decarbonisation of the economy involves several industries, especially energy, which cuts across all the others and one of the ones with the most CO₂ emissions, the main greenhouse gas (GHG) that contributes to global warming.

To achieve this goal, electricity generation from renewable sources such as wind, solar, hydro and biomass, which have a lower carbon footprint than fossil fuels, must be increased. This clean energy also improves security of supply, diversifies the energy mix and creates opportunities for innovation and economic development. 

The decarbonisation of the energy sector must not, however, affect economic growth and universal access to energy. Increasing the volume of renewables at the required speed and according to new generation models in the face of growing energy demand poses challenges such as grid integration, regulation and agility in planning and implementation.  

Deploying more renewable energy sources faster requires developing innovative solutions to move towards a more electric, more sustainable and more accessible energy system without undermining fair access to energy. It is against this background that ANTARES, Iberdrola's digital platform to guarantee sustainability, efficiency and competitiveness in the sector, was created. 

What is ANTARES?

Project origin story

The idea of ANTARES was born at the end of 2022 under the framework of the "Digital Boost", our major transformational digitalisation project aimed at optimising all the company's processes.  

The ANTARES platform shares its name with the brightest star in the Scorpius constellation and comes from the Greek "anti Ares", meaning "the rival of Ares/Mars". Because of its power and reddish colour, Antares competes for prominence with the planet Mars (Ares in Greek) in the night sky, which represents the God of War in Greco-Roman mythology. In Egyptian astronomy, the star represented Serket, the goddess of healing. The poetics of the name –chosen through an internal competition–inspired the design of the logo, which became an identifying marker, merging the colour of the star with the contribution to the necessary decarbonisation of the planet.

ANTARES also embodies the sense of urgency and acceleration claimed by the project: Advancing New Tangible Assets REnewableS (ANTes, mÁs REnovableS).

Relevance of the ANTARES project

In a scenario of growth in several countries, with complex and unique markets, where every step of renewable energy development is a challenge, efficiency and resilience are essential to drive the deployment of renewable energy sources.

Iberdrola has a pipeline of more than 100 GW of renewable projects diversified by technology in onshore wind, offshore wind, photovoltaic, hydro and energy storage. These projects are also distributed across a wide range of territories, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Brazil, Australia, Spain, PortugalExternal link, opens in new window.  and other European Union countries. 

This wide technological and geographic variety is essential to drive clean generation and has allowed us to establish ourselves as a world leader in renewable energy. It also introduces an inherent complexity unique to each project due to differences in countries, technologies and markets. 

Managing such diversity presents the important challenge of standardising and digitising the development process, which in itself is not simple, without taking away local management autonomy, adapting the standards to the conditions in each country. ANTARES offers an innovative solution without slowing down business operations in today's competitive and complex market conditions. 

 SEE INFOGRAPHIC: Deployment of ANTARES modules [PDF]

Three key factors for achieving efficiency with ANTARES

ANTARES has been a major challenge as it is tackling a substantial transformation of working methods in continuously evolving organisations in a complex international context. Digitalisation eliminates 75% of the causes of human error and improves process efficiency by 40%. This translates into less energy consumption, faster development and administration, less paper and less travel between countries. 

It also accelerates renewable development, contributing directly to the reduction of CO₂ emissions by boosting clean energy. To illustrate the contribution of these sources, a new 100 MW wind power plant in Spain displaces a non-renewable one. This means 100,000 t CO₂ are not emitted in one year and nearly 300 t CO₂ are not emitted for each day it is brought into operation early. ANTARES drives its deployment and thus contributes to the energy transition. 

Efficiency has been achieved thanks to ANTARES’s three innovation factors: user-driven change management, digitisation of a complex process and scalable data architecture. 

User-driven change management

Users are at the heart of change management. Initially, a small group of users based in Spain with established international business experience was selected. These first digital boosters were a sample of the different specialities in development and implementation. With the idea of becoming more digital and significantly improving their daily work, they bought the purpose, chose the name and participated in the functional definition and user experience.  

Later, with the initial experimental version of ANTARES up and running, it was key to broaden the user group to capture market nuances. The challenge was extended to Poland, Germany, Greece and France, which constituted a sufficiently diverse set of markets and new digital boosters joined the project.

Digitisation of a complex process

ANTARES can optimise the development of the project pipeline, improving the conversion into tangible assets, with an economic approach and full respect for management autonomy. 

 SEE INFOGRAPHIC: ANTARES in the development life cycle [PDF]

The development process, which appears to be standard worldwide, has particular differences in practice in each country: with different consents and permitting processes, legal considerations, market functioning, language and culture. This in-depth understanding helped to establish a common language that facilitated standardisation among users globally and to define the stages of development and evolution of the digital product. 

The challenge of internationalisation was met by approaching the roll-out progressively. In the initial phase, four European countries were used as test countries: Poland, Germany, France and Greece. This sample of countries made it possible to identify particular cases of renewable development and to find solutions. It also allowed the platform’s flexibility and suitability to be tested. 

Subsequent phases included other countries deploying modules of standardised functionality to assist in the adoption of ANTARES for the future deployment of more powerful modules. 

Scalable data architecture: intelligent digitisation

The challenge is not a easy one. Managing a large volume of data from a complex business development —a pipeline of different renewable generation technologies, with technical and administrative specificities and in more than 20 countries, and involving multiple specialised profiles— requires order, clear priorities and a strong understanding of the business.  

ANTARES has a comprehensible, clean and, crucially, scalable data structure. The objective was to set up a single source of information to socialise business knowledge. This platform means the development can be adapted to the users and the local context of each country. Although this starting idea is complex, its aim is to continue to grow and evolve to improve functionality, processes and user experience, key factors that have marked the design of the data structure. 

Digital platform: relevance and functioning

ANTARES incorporates the modules of Opportunities, Projects, Pipeline, Investment Plan, Business Insight and allows others to be added as the evolution of the business process demands it, as well as integration with AI (artificial intelligence) assistants once module deployment is completed.

 SEE INFOGRAPHIC: ANTARES, accelerator of renewable development [PDF]

Iberdrola, leader in sustainable innovation

Innovation is a key strategic variable at Iberdrola that influences all of our businesses and activities. Our goal is to promote the development of disruptive and sustainable technologies, aligned with the fundamental need to decarbonise generation through the massive integration of renewable energies, the promotion of smart grids, and the electrification of demand. 

We have been committed to innovation for more than 15 years with programmes such as PERSEO to develop a global ecosystem of start-ups in the power industry to provide access to the technologies of the future. Our commitment to innovation has led us to become the world's leading private energy company in terms of investment in R&D&I (research, development and innovation) according to the European Commission.