Why infrastructure project data needs a standard format

In our experience, almost everyone involved in an infrastructure transaction has the same complaint about project data.

Developers say each counterparty asks for the same information in a different format. Investors say the data rooms they receive are not comparable across deals. Lenders say what passes bankability in one portfolio reappears, differently organised, in the next.

They are describing one problem: the data is there, but it has no shape.

The cost of having no standard

Some data already has a single point of reference: in Italy, the technical register of generating plants sits in GAUDÌ, Terna’s registry system. The due diligence dossier does not: permits, contracts, counterparties and financials reach the data room organised the way whoever prepared them saw fit.

This is not a cosmetic concern. In our view it is a real source of friction for institutional capital entering Italian PV. It lengthens DD timelines. It forces every buyer to rebuild the same analytical apparatus from scratch on every deal. And it makes deals almost impossible to compare with one another across regions, vintages and technologies: Italy’s GSE statistics describe the installed fleet, not the transactions.

We see it every time: the same documents, reorganised by hand, inside every DD.

What a standard would look like

A usable standard is not a rigid template. It is:

• A well-defined schema for the objects that matter: plants, permits, contracts, counterparties, financials, operating records.
• Source-linked values: every extracted value points back to the original document and page.
• Per-field confidence: for each value, how reliable the extraction is and why.
• Structured and machine-readable: exportable to JSON or equivalent, so downstream systems (credit models, portfolio trackers, regulatory reporting) can consume it without manual intervention.

None of these properties are exotic. They are the minimum if the data is ever going to become a real asset.

AIP Engine

AIP Engine, now in early access, is our first step. It ingests unstructured project packages (PDFs, spreadsheets, scans, photographs) and produces a structured Dossier Digitale Strutturato (DDS) that conforms to the schema we develop on real deals.

The product is deliberately narrow. It is designed for the three profiles we know best: investors running acquisition-side DD on Italian PV assets, asset managers onboarding new mandates, lenders reviewing bankability.

The schema will evolve. The input coverage will expand. The underlying conviction won’t: infrastructure data needs a standard format, and the most credible place to build it is from the receiving end of the transaction, not from the issuing end.

If this is relevant to you, as a user or as a collaborator on the schema, write to us.

Sources

Register of generating plants: Terna, GAUDI, the Single Data Management System for Power Generation Plants ↗ (page consulted on 2 October 2026), and GAUDÌ, description of the platform’s main functions ↗ (May 2012, in Italian). Fleet statistics: GSE, Solare fotovoltaico, Rapporto statistico 2024 ↗ (September 2025, in Italian), chapters 4, 8, 9, 12 and 21 (evolution by year, regions, provinces, module type, equivalent operating hours). The observations on data rooms and due diligence are Altheon’s experience and opinion, not data drawn from these sources. Sources checked as of 2 October 2026. Update of 2 October 2026: market assessments are now presented as Altheon’s experience and opinion, the claim that this is the «single largest source of friction» has been removed, and the reference to the GAUDÌ register and the distinction between installed-fleet statistics and transaction data have been added.