In 1997, Glenn Drayton was completing his doctoral thesis at the University of Canterbury. During his studies, he participated in an energy market research group with a strong focus on modeling. He began creating a rapid application development library, which allowed him to complete industrial-scale mathematical programming.

After his thesis, Glenn took a consulting role with a transmission system operator and quickly saw the need to test a range of designs in the energy market. In 1999, he expanded the original program written during his thesis and founded a company under the name Drayton Analytics. By mid-2000, the first version of PLEXOS was released.

Before long, PLEXOS was officially adopted by the Irish SEM as its modeling standard and the software began developing a global presence. Demand was also increased dramatically by the effects of the California energy crisis in 2002.

In 2006, Drayton Analytics transformed its business plan and was renamed to Energy Exemplar. Energy Exemplar grew its customer base in the United States and Europe by opening three regional offices with in-time-zone support.

The company achieved a major milestone in 2015, when the 1,000th installation of PLEXOS was completed. This made PLEXOS the most widely used energy market software in the world.

Two years later, this success caught the attention of the Riverside Company, a private equity group who acquired Energy Exemplar. As part of the growth plan, Energy Exemplar also acquired EPIS, LLC. The EPIS platform, Aurora, complemented the PLEXOS suite and increased brand recognition across the United States and Canada.

Since then, Energy Exemplar has more than doubled in size. The company continues to grow and achieve its goal of becoming the leading end-to-end, integrated solution provider.

Financial Services

Details