Partnership BDO & Odot

Just like an accountant manages the accounts and dispenses advice, energy costs and contracts also merit permanent follow-up and renegotiation, especially now that we’ve been seeing the impact this can have. 
That is why BDO has decided to engage in energy accounting through a participation in the capital of Antwerp scale-up Odot, the fast-growing digital energy management platform that monitors and actively renegotiates the energy contracts of businesses. Their aim is to help you determine the most advantageous and sustainable energy strategy for the future.

Odot (odot.be) is a digital platform for businesses established in 2017 by seasoned energy expert Chris Elbers. The scale-up has grown exponentially since its inception, saving its customers millions of euros in energy costs in recent years. 
The scale-up knows exactly how energy contracts are structured, where the hidden margins and risks are, what administrative costs are charged, how the link with wholesale prices is made and what the optimisation possibilities are. The platform not only enables companies to monitor everything themselves via a dashboard but it can also control smart charging stations, batteries and solar panel inverters and recently a peak consumption ‘alarm’ to avoid capacity charges was added.

The right energy strategy for more sustainability

This detailed knowledge of energy contracts and a proactive digital follow-up are the two aspects we consider a significant added value for you. Not just to curb the current costs but also to more accurately assess future energy costs and be able to spread the risks. This way unpleasant surprises such as in recent years can be avoided. We can also unburden you and guide you through the growing complexity of energy supply and management, and assist you in the evolution towards more sustainable entrepreneurship and ESG reporting. Thanks to Odot’s expertise, we can advise you even better on such matters as the integration of charging point infrastructure, solar panels or offshore wind farms.

Clever comparisons thanks to AI

We aim to do this as proactively as possible with the aid of the AI algorithms of aiGUST, the fintech start-up we launched together with industry peers. aiGUST harnesses anonymised accounting data from companies sourced from a number of Belgian accountants. This unique tool and the artificial intelligence it uses make it easy for us to compare companies and make analyses and predictions on a host of parameters, one of which is energy. For instance, we can proactively check whether you are paying too much for your energy compared to other companies in the same industry, firms of similar size, etc. This way we can pool our resources to determine the cause and subsequently organise your energy expenditures in a more efficient and sustainable way. In addition to our own expertise we can now also offer Odot as a specialised, innovative solution.