Neara has acquired Australian electrical network modelling specialist Zepben, in a deal the company says will add CIM-based electrical modelling to its physics-enabled digital twin platform used by utilities.
The companies said the combination is intended to let utilities link investment decisions to both physical and electrical calculations, as regulators in multiple markets increase scrutiny on how network spending is justified.
Neara said its platform already supports physical and mechanical risk assessments and financial trade-off analysis, and that adding electrical modelling will extend analysis from individual assets to the broader network level.
Neara said the acquisition would help utilities address data aggregation and connection challenges, and outlined potential use cases including constraint forecasting for demand growth and distributed energy resources, planned outage management and customer notification workflows, end-to-end capacity mapping for interconnections such as data centres and renewables, and network model management using CIM-based models.
Neara Chief Strategy Officer Karamvir Singh said the deal addresses what he described as a gap in the US market and supports the company’s US presence. “Neara established the global benchmark for physics modelling and engineering-grade analysis. Acquiring Zepben will enable physical, electrical and risk modelling to come together holistically, addressing a critical US market gap and accelerating our ability to partner with leading players in the electrical modelling category.”
Zepben CEO Adam White said: “Joining Neara accelerates what we’re working towards in Australia and around the world. Our technology tackles many of the challenges Neara’s customers already face, so it’s a natural fit.”
Neara said it raised an A$90m Series D in February at an A$1.1bn valuation, and that its team has more than doubled over the past year.
