How Iberdrola and Kyoto Streamlined Solar Siting and Accelerated Heatcube Business Development
The company transformed a manual process into a scalable, data-driven system built with REplace's technology and workflows.
This case study navigates how Kyoto was able to align solar siting with industrial heat demand— building an strategic playbook to accelerate commercial relationships and de-risk multi million-euro projects.
The Challenge
How to identify and evaluate optimal solar PV sites (5–30 MW) near industrial plants that consume significant heat, such as chemical, paper, food & beverage, pharma, and steel facilities.
Kyoto’s commercial and project development team confronted several obstacles.
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Manual, fragmented land search: identifying suitable parcels close to industrial clusters for self-consumption (<2 km) required more than 25 days.
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Lack of ability to combine complex and multi-layer criteria of the industrial demand (heat load), the solar potential (radiation, land use), and the logistical feasibility (parcel size, accessibility).
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High Risk of Sub-optimal siting due to selecting parcels far from target industries jeopardized regulatory classification as self-consumption
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Missed commercial opportunities due to the lack of structured data on industrial zones, gas pipelines, and existing PV capacity.
REplace's Solution
An integrated siting and decision-support system tailored to Kyoto’s needs that included
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Advanced filtering to identify industrial zones with eligible land for solar to power the Heatcube (5–30MW parcels).
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Distance-to-industry layers that prioritized parcels within self-consumption thresholds (<2 km), while allowing flexibility for non-autoconsumption opportunities.
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Industrial Intelligence & Smart Visualization of specific plants within industrial parks (chemicals, agrifood, pharma), plus cadastral references.
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Value-add energy context with layers on substations, medium-voltage lines, and existing PV plants to support interconnection strategies.
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Dynamic search tools such as polygon-based search, municipality-level filtering, and parcel-by-parcel analysis, all exportable into Kyoto’s workflows.
The REplace custom solution enable Kyoto to provide a full project scope within a few minutes
Accelerating Heatcube Business Development
With a clear pathway of where to place Heatcube, where to deploy solar PV, and how to present a cost-effective, de-risked decarbonization strategy. These capabilities enabled Kyoto with:
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Faster Client Readiness through ready-made siting options, reducing preparation time from weeks to days.
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Validating parcels directly against industrial zones and gas demand improved accuracy and minimized the risk of presenting nonviable projects.
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Stronger Collaboration with Iberdrola by leveraging insights on substations, lines, and existing PV plants.
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Data Driven & Scalable Workflow for evaluating new zones —applicable to both ongoing grant projects and future commercial expansions.
“REplace transformed how we evaluate and secure sites for Heatcube projects. It allowed us to pinpoint industrial zones with eligible land, align solar siting with heat demand, and walk into client meetings fully prepared with viable proposals."
Pedro Montoro Sánchez
Commercial Director Iberia, Kyoto Group AS
About Kyoto & the partnership with Iberdrola
Kyoto Group, a leading European thermal battery manufacturer, promoting their pilot and being directly involved in the scope discussions and evaluated the potential to develop the associated solar PV farms.
Iberdrola is the global leader in renewable energy and a driving force in the energy transition, with a market capitalization exceeding $100 billion.
Scalable industrialization with Kyoto Heatcube and Iberdrola’s renewables
The combination of REplace’s automated siting with Kyoto’s Heatcube technology created a smart playbook for industrial decarbonization: identify heat-intensive industries, site solar PV nearby, and deploy Heatcube as the backbone of a low-cost, net-zero energy system.
For industrial developers and utilities alike, this model demonstrates how integrated siting and thermal storage can turn fragmented research into scalable, bankable projects.
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