thingnario, an AI- and IoT-powered SaaS provider for the energy sector, has announced a strategic partnership with Upgrade Energy Philippines, Inc. (UGEP), a renewable energy developer and EPC contractor in the Philippines. Under the terms of the collaboration, thingnario will integrate its AI solar monitoring and energy management systems (EnMS) across UGEP’s ambitious 1 GW solar capacity pipeline targeted for 2028.

The company said this partnership illustrates the two entities’ shared commitment to reshaping the Philippine energy landscape. By combining UGEP’s infrastructure development with thingnario’s AI intelligence, the two companies are helping to drive the nation toward greater power self-sufficiency. The goal is to provide commercial and industrial clients with a highly stable, resilient, and cost-effective source of clean energy.

“In a volatile market where regulations change and energy supplies remain unstable, a company’s speed of response is its greatest asset,” said Joseph Teng, sales director of thingnario, during the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing ceremony. Teng emphasized the strategic importance of agility in today’s energy sector, and said that the partnership “allows us to stay future-ready, keeping our focus squarely on rapid business growth and clean energy expansion.”

Pieterjan Vanbuggenhout, chief operating officer of Upgrade Energy Philippines, said that the integration enhances UGEP’s operational capabilities. “Through this technology, we have managed to introduce automatic reporting and AI-driven performance evaluations, allowing us to dive much deeper into asset analysis.”

Looking forward, the collaboration lays an advanced digital foundation for UGEP’s next phase of growth. As UGEP expands into utility-scale projects, thingnario’s AI-driven capabilities aim to ensure optimized asset management and maximum yield for massive, grid-connected arrays. This is also designed to support UGEP’s battery energy storage systems(BESS)expansion, with the goal of allowing for intelligent peak-shaving, load shifting, and enhanced grid stability, thingnario said.

UGEP’s off-grid projects will also benefit because smart monitoring is expected to deliver new reliability and real-time optimization to remote communities and industrial sites. This collaboration serves as a powerful catalyst for carbon reduction, advancing ESG goals, and fostering a sustainable, net-zero future for the entire region, thingnario said.

Also as a result of the partnership, UGEP will deploy thingnario’s flagship PHOTON platform. The idea is to centralize UGEP’s portfolio into a single dashboard with 1-minute real-time data granularity.The platform leverages AI smart event detection with the goal of catching operational issues before downtime occurs, while streamlining daily workflows with automated curtailment analysis, billing, and reporting.

PHOTON is specifically tailored for the Philippine C&I sector, and is designed to manage complex plant architectures, including multiple tapping points and zero-export structures. The idea is that by enabling low-voltage CT-only setups, it significantly lowers construction costs, minimizes curtailment losses, and maximizes PV generation, while also replacing high-cost, high-risk CT+PT medium/high-voltage equipment and architecture, thingnario said. PHOTON’s data foundation offers a unified path for future energy management system (EnMS) expansion, according to thingnario.