Discovery Green Applies Actuarial Modelling to Renewables With EnergyOS

Licensed electricity trader Discovery Green has launched EnergyOS, a renewable-energy operating system combining AI forecasting with the group’s actuarial modelling — built on the argument that renewables procurement is a risk problem rather than a commodity purchase.

Chief executive Andre Nepgen describes the target as the “renewables trilemma”: businesses trying to maximise savings, reduce emissions and manage financial risk at once.

The actuarial case

Head of Actuarial and R&D Dan Ginsberg argues the renewables market shares structural characteristics with insurance and financial services, where Discovery has operated for 30 years.

“Generation fluctuates, demand is unpredictable and future market conditions remain uncertain,” he says. “EnergyOS brings actuarial thinking to these challenges so that renewable energy can be managed with greater sophistication.”

Reframing procurement as a risk rather than a commodity is what allows actuarial techniques to be applied to renewables as an asset class. That is the distinguishing claim, and it is a different proposition from energy management software that optimises consumption against a tariff.

What it was built on

AI uses that data to produce a dynamic forecasting model. A second model customises for the individual client by selecting the best combination of solar, wind and storage. A third allocates energy so environmental and commercial objectives are met without increasing financial and operational risk.

What has been tested, and what hasn’t

Nepgen reports that internal stress-testing showed the system producing tailored solutions across a range of clients, from farmers to miners, yielding significant cost savings and emission reductions.

Those results come from stress-testing rather than deployment. No figures, no named clients and no independent validation have been published.

EnergyOS rolls out to all existing business clients during 2026 and is available to new business clients immediately. A public interactive tool based on it has also been released, letting clients and prospective clients model technology and pricing scenarios.

It changed Discovery’s own view

The detail Nepgen volunteers is more telling than the client-facing claims.

The tool has started to change Discovery Green’s internal thinking on procurement, he says, by giving visibility of the true value of assets already in its portfolio and those under consideration for investment.

A company using its own modelling to reassess its own asset values is a stronger signal than a stress-test result — it means the output is being trusted where the money is.

Discovery Green launched three years ago and is among South Africa’s largest energy traders, with over 740 MW under construction and more than 50 business customers.