PSR, a consulting company and provider of analytical solutions for the global energy market, celebrates its 35th anniversary this November. PSR has a team of 130 specialists in energy, computing and engineering, with dozens of doctoral and masters-level contributors. The company operates in more than seventy countries and on every continent. Since its founding, PSR has stood out for its innovation, focus on research, technical excellence, integrity and analytical thinking with technical rigor.

PSR’s work is centered on the tripod of developing computational models, consultancy and innovation. The first “leg” of the tripod – models – appeared in 1987 in the kitchen of the apartment of its founder, Mario Veiga, with the energy optimization software SDDP being sold to New Zealand, Colombia and the regional market of Central America. In addition to SDDP, which remains the company’s flagship product, PSR currently has a portfolio of world-leading software such as NCP, OptFolio, OptGen, OptValue and HERA. These software are licensed to over a thousand companies in Brazil and abroad, and is run on PSR’s cloud computing environment: PSR Cloud. A recent example is the energy simulation of the West Coast in the United States, where the models are run on thirty thousand computers in the PSR Cloud.

The second “leg” – consulting – began in the mid-1990s. PSR has been present in all relevant milestones in the national electrical sector, such as advising the Presidency of the Republic on managing the country’s energy rationing in 2001; advising the government on the design of contract bidding in 2004; providing broad support to investors in privatization and investment decisions; offering support to financiers on generation, transmission and distribution projects; and, more recently, performing strategic studies of decarbonization and the impacts of climate change. This same consulting dynamic has been repeated abroad, where PSR operates in dozens of countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

The third “leg” – innovation – is the mainstay of all the company’s previous activities. PSR’s scientific publications have more than 9,000 citations in international literature, a standard equivalent to the best universities in the world. This contribution was recognized with the election of Mario Veiga to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, in addition to the title of Fellow of the IEEE being granted both to him and to Luiz Barroso, the current CEO, who also received the Outstanding Young Engineer Award from IEEE. Additionally, more than 50 doctoral and master’s theses have been developed within the company, in co-supervision with the best universities. A recent example of PSR’s innovation is the ToQUBO software for optimizing energy systems using quantum computing, jointly developed with NASA’s Quantum Computing Laboratory. The challenging and collaborative environment at PSR is a beacon to new, up-and-coming talent: the median age of the PSR team is only 28 years old, comparable to that of tech startups.

In addition to Mario Veiga and Luiz Barroso, PSR’s executive management is made up of Raphael Chabar and Rafael Kelman, both holding PhDs in engineering and having established an excellent technical reputation in their areas of expertise. Two years ago, PSR took an important step towards its future growth by signing a strategic partnership with Banco BTG Pactual. This has allowed the expansion of the company’s activities in infrastructure, and in the areas of innovation and energy transition; not to mention helping the company to increase its presence in the global energy market while maintaining its technical independence and thinking.

“Our greatest pride over these 35 years has been the growth of people. It is a privilege to participate in a daily basis, learned, worked together and accompanied the professional development of each of the collaborators of this incredible team. Many joined the team as interns and today have doctorates. They are now recognized in the energy sector, and requested at major national and international events. This is the case of directors Luiz Barroso, Raphael Chabar and Rafael Kelman, who started as interns more than 20 years ago.” says Mario Veiga.

PSR is ready for the next 35 years, continuing its research and training the team in new areas such as the link between agribusiness, water and energy; energy and geopolitical transition; new technologies related to the decarbonized economy; digitization and decentralization of the distribution sector; and integration of information from satellites and Deep Reinforcement Learning in making investment decisions and energy systems operations. And, simultaneously, preserving our original vision of transforming ideas and methods into algorithms, products and services that benefit our customers and, above all, society.

About PSR

PSR is a global provider of innovative methodologies and analytical tools for the optimization of planning, operations and risk management in energy systems and economic, financial and regulatory consulting studies. It operates in more than seventy countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Africa. Its customers are investors in electricity and gas; regulators and other government agencies; operation centers; banks and multilateral development agencies such as Banco Mundial, IFC and BID; and environmental organizations, among many others.