Docs/Use Cases/Journalism & Investigations

Journalism & Investigations

Investigative workflows: unmasking SPV ownership, tracking M&A activity, and monitoring hazard exposure.

Energy ReporterInvestigative JournalistNGO Researcher

Energy assets are often owned through layers of shell companies, making it difficult to identify who benefits from public subsidies, regulatory decisions, or environmental impacts. The platform resolves corporate ownership chains and classifies news by category, making it a research tool for accountability journalism.

Unmask the real owner behind an SPV

A new solar farm just got permitted under the name 'SunValley Solar LLC'. Who is actually behind it?

1

Search for the plant

On the home page, search by plant name or switch to Owner mode to search by company name. The fuzzy search handles partial names and common variations.

2

Read the ownership comparison

The Ownership section shows EIA's registered name alongside GEM's resolved parent and Wikidata's corporate chain. When these disagree, a yellow badge highlights the discrepancy. The EIA name is the legal entity; the GEM name is who actually controls the asset.

Topaz Solar Farm ownership — EIA shows 'Topaz Solar Farms LLC' (SPV), GEM resolves to BHE Solar (Berkshire Hathaway Energy)
3

Trace the ownership chain

The ownership chain diagram below the comparison table shows the directed path: plant entity, operating subsidiary, holding company, ultimate parent, institutional shareholders. For publicly traded owners, you'll see major shareholders with percentage stakes.

4

Check for patterns

On the Explore page, use the Owner filter to find all plants owned by the same parent. If one SPV is a shell, the parent likely operates dozens of similar entities across states.

Key insight

EIA filings list the registered operator — often a special purpose vehicle (SPV) created for that single project. GEM resolves the parent company, and Wikidata traces the corporate chain to the ultimate beneficial owner. 2,320 plants in the database have ownership source disagreements — these are the assets where the registered name masks the real investor.

Not all ownership disagreements indicate shell companies. Some reflect genuine M&A lag — the plant was acquired recently and EIA filings haven't been updated yet. Cross-reference with news articles in the “Deals” category to distinguish SPV masking from recent transactions.

Track M&A activity in renewable energy

Which renewable energy deals happened in the last 90 days?

1

Open the news page with deal filters

Navigate to the /news page. Set Category = Deals and Date Range = 90 days. The feed shows all deal-related articles across all plants.

News page filtered to Deals category showing M&A, PPA, and project finance articles
2

Narrow by subcategory

Under Deals, select M&A to focus on acquisitions and mergers. Or select PPA to track new power purchase agreements.

3

Search by entity

Use the entity filter to find articles mentioning a specific company. The entity extraction identifies company names and roles (buyer, seller, developer) from article headlines and snippets.

4

Follow the plant link

Each article card shows the associated plant. Click through to the plant detail page for the full asset picture: ownership chain, financial data, generation history, and more deal-related news.

Key insight

The news pipeline automatically classifies articles into categories including 'deals' with subcategories for M&A, PPAs, project finance, and more. Entity extraction identifies the companies involved and their roles (buyer, seller, developer). This turns a manual news monitoring task into a filterable, searchable feed.

Investigate hazard exposure for a region

After the Texas winter storm, which power plants were reported as affected?

1

Filter news by hazard and state

On the /news page, set Category = Hazards and State = TX. The feed shows hazard-related articles for Texas power plants.

2

Check subcategories

The Hazards category includes subcategories: wildfire, hurricane, tornado, hail, flooding, extreme heat, extreme cold, ice storm. Select the relevant subcategory to narrow results.

3

Cross-reference with generation data

Click through to an affected plant's detail page. The Generation section shows monthly MWh — look for drops during and after the event period. Storage plants show bidirectional charts (charge/discharge) that may reveal operational disruptions.

Key insight

News articles about physical hazards (wildfire, hurricane, extreme cold, flooding) are automatically tagged. Filtering by Hazards category and state surfaces incident reports for specific regions. Cross-reference with the generation section to see if capacity factors dropped after the event.

Ownership chains, news classification accuracy, and entity extraction all improve with each data refresh. More sources mean better coverage and fewer blind spots.

What's coming

Planned

RSS feed for news categories — subscribe to “Deals” or “Hazards” in your news reader. Improved entity deduplication so “NextEra”, “NextEra Energy”, and “NextEra Energy Inc.” resolve to the same entity.

Exploring

Entity relationship graph visualization showing connections between companies, plants, and deal activity over time. Automated ownership change detection that flags when a plant's GEM parent differs from the previous month's snapshot.