Frequently asked questions
Straight answers about what Spectivon does, how it works, and what it does not do.
The basics
What is Spectivon?
Spectivon is an environmental due diligence, permitting, and compliance platform for renewable energy. It reads a project's documents where they sit in your SharePoint and returns environmental, permitting, and compliance risks, permits, permit conditions, and schedule dates, each cited to the exact source document and page. It is built by Kryphion Systems, LLC.
Who is Spectivon for?
Renewable energy developers and independent power producers, private equity and infrastructure funds, asset managers and owner-operators, project finance lenders, and environmental insurance underwriters. Users include deal teams, environmental and permitting specialists, and asset managers.
What is environmental due diligence software?
It is software that helps a buyer, lender, or insurer review the environmental, permitting, and compliance documents behind a project before a transaction. Spectivon reads the project's documents, reports each risk it finds with a citation to the source document and page, and organizes the results into a ranked risk register.
What is the difference between the Due Diligence and Asset Management modules?
Due Diligence covers the risk scan and ranked risk register, the due diligence memo, the seller Q&A log, and portfolio visuals. Asset Management covers every project you hold, from early development through construction and operation: the permit matrix and permit conditions, the compliance calendar, and the project schedule. Both share the same login, projects, and indexed documents, and Document Chat and File Audit come with either. Adding the second module later requires no migration and no re-indexing.
Does the project record carry over after closing?
Yes. When you acquire a project reviewed in Spectivon, it moves into ownership on the same record, so the risk register and the permit conditions found in diligence carry forward instead of being exported or rebuilt. That holds whether the project is still in development or already operating.
Is Asset Management only for projects we acquire?
No. It covers every project you hold, including ones you develop yourself from greenfield, through construction and operation. Projects you acquire join the same portfolio, with their diligence record attached.
Security and data handling
Do my documents leave SharePoint?
No. Spectivon opens each document from SharePoint, pulls out the text, and keeps only that text, its embeddings, and the results derived from it. The files themselves are never saved.
What access does Spectivon need?
Read-only access to the project folders you choose, through your own Microsoft 365 sign-in, so Spectivon can open only the files you can already open. It requests only Files.Read and User.Read, plus offline access so the daily update check can run; never mail, calendar, or Teams. It never sees your password. It holds an encrypted access token, which you can remove with Disconnect Microsoft in Spectivon's account menu and which your IT team can revoke in Microsoft Entra ID.
How is customer data separated?
Each company's data can be read only by that company's users. This is enforced by row-level security on every database table, in the database itself and not only by application logic.
Is Spectivon SOC 2 certified?
Not yet. Spectivon runs on infrastructure providers that hold SOC 2 Type II attestations, including Microsoft Azure and Anthropic, and its own SOC 2 certification is planned, not yet held. A security overview is available on request.
Does Spectivon or its AI providers train on my data?
No. All model calls run under each provider's commercial API terms, not consumer terms, and under those terms neither Anthropic nor OpenAI trains models on API inputs or outputs. Both keep API data for up to 30 days by default unless a separate agreement, such as zero data retention, applies. Provider terms change; the current terms of each provider govern, and full detail is on the security page.
What happens to my data if I end the contract?
All of your data is deleted within 30 days of contract termination or a written request.
Is there a free trial or self-serve signup?
No. Accounts are provisioned by Spectivon for each organization. Most teams start with a demo on a screen share, then a Findings Review on a project they already know. A time-limited demo account with sample projects is also available.
Accuracy and trust
How does Spectivon avoid made-up findings?
Every finding quotes the passage it is based on, and Spectivon confirms that passage appears word for word on the cited page before showing it to you. Permit numbers, dates, and statuses get the same check, plus a confirmation that the quoted wording refers to that specific permit. If the documents do not support a value, Spectivon leaves it blank rather than guessing.
Can I check where a finding came from?
Yes. Every finding, permit field, condition, and document-derived schedule date links to its source document and page. Click it to open the document; PDFs open at the cited page.
Does AI replace my environmental specialists?
No. Spectivon does the first read: a page-cited risk register in front of your specialists at the start of a review, and permits, conditions, and schedule dates pulled from your documents for your team to confirm. Their time goes to judgment rather than to finding the right page. Nothing extracted enters the permit matrix or schedule until a person accepts it, and manual edits are never silently overwritten.
What if two documents contradict each other?
Spectivon surfaces the disagreement as a document conflict instead of silently choosing one version.
Does it read every page of a very large document?
In almost every case, yes. Document Chat and permit extraction cover every page. The risk scan reads each document in full up to a per-document limit set well above the length of a typical environmental report, and that limit can be raised for a project that needs it. Nothing is skipped silently: any page not read, whether beyond the limit, an unreadable scan, or excluded because it contains personal information, is listed by its exact page number, alongside the percentage of the document scanned.
Does Document Chat make up numbers?
It is designed not to. Chat answers from the project's documents and cites the page for each point. If the documents do not state a number you ask about, chat says so instead of inventing one and attributing it to a report. Chat may later be able to bring in publicly available figures where the documents are silent; any such figure would be flagged as public data, cited to its source, and kept separate from what the documents say.
How it works
Which document types can Spectivon read?
PDF (including scanned TIFF images), Word, Excel, PowerPoint, email files, and ZIP archives, with OCR for scanned and image-based pages. Photos, CAD drawings, and GIS files are listed but not read, and File Audit shows which projects have them. Spectivon classifies documents such as Phase I and Phase II environmental site assessments, biological and species surveys, cultural resources studies, SWPPPs, Army Corps Section 404 applications, USFWS Section 7 consultation letters, BLM right-of-way applications, state environmental permits, and interconnection studies.
How long does setup take?
Connect your Microsoft account, create a project, paste the SharePoint folder link, and review the file list. Indexing then runs in the background. Nothing is migrated or re-filed. How long indexing takes depends on how many documents the project has.
Does it keep up when documents change?
Yes. A daily check looks for new or changed files, reprocesses only those, and triggers a fresh scan. A What Changed view records what was added or updated. You can also check for updates on demand.
Can I use my own memo format?
Yes. Upload a Word memo template in Settings and generated due diligence memos follow it. You can also include a list of the indexed documents as an appendix.
Does Spectivon build project schedules?
Yes, in the Asset Management module. It computes a critical-path schedule with dependencies, float, constraints, and baselines, starts from a standard solar development template or an Excel import, and exports to MS Project XML, Excel, or PDF. It can also propose actual start and finish dates found in your documents for you to confirm.
Can Spectivon import an MS Project file?
Not the .mpp file itself, but a Microsoft Project Excel export imports as-is. Task names, durations, and predecessors, including lags, come across, so a migrated project keeps its existing schedule and dependencies. Schedules can also start from a standard solar development template or manual entry, and export to MS Project XML, Excel, and PDF.
Does Spectivon connect to Power BI, project management tools, or permit tracking systems?
Not yet. Data moves in and out through files: the Q&A log imports seller responses from Excel and exports to Excel, schedules import from Excel and export to MS Project XML, Excel, and PDF, and due diligence memos are generated from the current findings. There are no live integrations with BI tools, permit-tracking systems, or project-management systems.
What generation types and regions does it support?
Projects can be tagged as solar, wind, battery storage, thermal storage, hydrogen, or other. Spectivon is centered on US projects: US states and Canadian provinces and territories can be recorded, and the jurisdiction permit checklist covers the US only.
Compared with alternatives
How is Spectivon different from uploading documents to a general AI chatbot?
A general chatbot answers questions about the files you give it. Spectivon reads every document for a project where it sits in your SharePoint, produces a persistent ranked risk register with every finding checked against its source, tracks permits and conditions with human review and a source for every value, maintains the compliance calendar and project schedule, audits your project file library, and keeps the record current as documents change. The comparison page covers this in more detail.
How is Spectivon different from manual data room review?
Manual review is thorough when there is time for it, and it depends on how many qualified people are available before a deadline. Spectivon puts a page-cited first-pass register in front of your specialists at the start of review so their time goes to judgment, not reading. The comparison page covers this in more detail.
Does Spectivon replace a permit tracking spreadsheet?
It can. Spectivon extracts permits and conditions from your own documents with source citations, keeps them current, and adds a compliance calendar and schedule. The comparison page covers this in more detail.
Getting started
How do I try Spectivon?
Start with a demo on a screen share. When you want to see results on your own work, request a Findings Review: share the files for a project you already know, through a secure upload link or a read-only SharePoint connection, and we walk your team through a page-cited risk register so you can judge it against what you know.
How is Spectivon priced?
Pricing is quote-based and depends on which modules you use and the size of your portfolio. Contact hello@spectivon.com for details.
Who builds Spectivon?
Spectivon is a product of Kryphion Systems, LLC, a Florida company. It was built by Nathan Shemella, who screened renewable projects for environmental fatal flaws at NextEra and then ran environmental permitting and compliance data for a renewable energy portfolio at Enel North America.