Transforming Power into Competitive Advantage

We support Canadian Industry in building and implementing resilient Electricity Strategies

Markets, Technologies & Regulations are shifting:

Are you prepared or exposed?

Alberta’s electricity landscape is entering its most significant structural shift in twenty years—a "calm before the storm" that provides a short window to develop and implement power strategies. For large-scale loads, power is no longer a static cost; it is now a driver of competitiveness, operational resilience, and long-term margin.

Our Services: From Benchmarking to Delivery

‘Set and forget' is no longer a robust power strategy. Resilience begins with an independent baseline of your status quo. We provide the transparency Boards and Executives require—identifying exactly where you stand and where your key risks and opportunities lie.

Once your baseline is established, we execute your roadmap as a seamless extension of your team—or supporting in the background. We implement with a focus on commercial priority, turning power into an asset that fuels both economic resilience and long-term profitability.

Our capacity-building programs transfer deep insights directly to your team. We empower your people to decode complex risks and seize emerging opportunities, ensuring your organization has the context required to lead in a volatile energy landscape.

Levers - Our Framework

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Contractual

Optimizing your supply portfolio. We architect the optimal power supply mix based on your priorities, including retail contracts, hedging arrangements and Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).

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Operational

Increasing reliability and asset performance. We ensure operational continuity, then monetize asset flexibility against market signals while addressing technical drivers like power quality.

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Investment-Based

Building commercially resilient energy assets. We evaluate "behind-the-fence" solutions—from solar to storage—to create permanent power cost reductions and structural margin protection.

Founders

Jan Poetsch portrait
  • Jan leads Arder’s operations and client value proposition, drawing on two decades of international leadership in the LNG sector.

    Prior to founding Arder, Jan served as Executive Vice President at PetroChina Canada, where he was accountable for Commercial, Marketing, IT, and Supply Chain functions, and served on the LNG Canada Executive Committee.

    Jan’s career began with Shell in London and The Hague, followed by a secondment to the Sakhalin 2 project as Contract Manager. In Canada, he provided M&A deal support before joining the LNG Canada Project as Commercial Deal Lead.

    Jan holds a Master of Science in Finance from Texas A&M and a Graduate Industrial Engineering degree from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. His background is further supported by CPA and CMA (Canada), ACMA and CGMA (UK) accounting qualifications, and the Associate in Risk Management (ARM) designation.

Portrait Sarah Black MacNiven
  • Co-Founder, President & General Counsel

    JD, LLM, B.Sc., ICD.D

    Sarah leads financing, legal, governance and external relationship management, including Arder's Advisory Board. She has held senior positions within LNG Canada (“LNGC”) / Shell and worked in investment banking with RBC Capital Markets, in law with McCarthy Tetrault, and had early career roles with the Privy Council Office in Ottawa and the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. She has extensive capital markets experience and senior level commercial knowledge, having negotiated, evaluated and structured M&A, commercial and joint venture agreements for LNGC, and other previous clients.

    Sarah holds a mid-career LLM from Osgoode Hall Law School, a JD from the University of Calgary, and a First Class Honours Bachelor of Commerce from Queen’s University.  She is called to the bar in the State of New York and the Province of Alberta, and has completed the ICD-Rotman, Directors Education Program. 

Clients, Memberships & Supporters

TSX-listed Canadian Oil & Gas Company

Major Global Investment Bank

Privately-held Canadian Oil & Gas Company

TSX-listed Canadian Oil & Gas Company

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Our Core Principle - Rigorous Focus

  • We deeply believe that we can only support clients if we truly understand their goals and act as an extension of their teams. This is our first and biggest focus area, and we strive to align our interests to those of our client at all times.

  • Our approach is informed and led by data. We take pride in rigorously applying analytics through all stages of an engagement.

  • The close incentive alignment with our clients and robust data analysis enable rigorously transparent solution delivery.