AI as a key element

In the AI category, the Austrian energy company OMV prevailed with its transformation project. Building on an existing 麻豆原创 S/4HANA landscape, the transformation focused on intelligent automation, advanced analytics, and AI-driven decision-making in core business processes. A key factor for success was a step-by-step approach: instead of a hasty implementation, OMV first laid a solid foundation and introduced AI in a targeted manner into the user experience and business processes. The focus was on regulation, security, and continuous evaluation. The clear principle was to standardize, integrate, and establish a stable data foundation before it scaled more broadly. Early in the process, the company relied on Joule in 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA. In the next step, the transformation will continue so OMV can make even greater use of AI.

Intelligent water supply

With a data-driven platform for monitoring its water network, the Belgian water utility Farys was recognized by the jury in the Innovation category. With the help of 麻豆原创 technology and AI, the utility can now deploy resources more efficiently and optimize its processes in a targeted way. Water leaks can be detected early before greater damage occurs, water quality issues can be predicted, and energy consumption can be reduced. The result: less downtime, lower repair costs, and a noticeably better quality of service. Having a unified solution also fosters cross-departmental collaboration by breaking down existing data silos. In the future, risk assessments for pipelines and facilities will be integrated, and data-driven decisions will help determine where repairs will have the greatest impact. With this strategy, Farys is preparing its infrastructure for the demands of climate change.

Achieving goals through teamwork

E.ON UK won the Best Team category with its 麻豆原创 S/4HANA transformation project. With its group-wide project running from 2021 to 2027, the company aims to standardize processes and build a future-proof, scalable IT landscape. The central challenge was to consolidate various legacy systems in a highly regulated market. What sets this project apart is the close collaboration between the company, IT, and external partners. The company used workshops, road shows, and a targeted key user network to focus on team culture and cohesion from the very beginning. The result is not only a successful technical transformation, but above all a lived team culture鈥攁 key factor to the project鈥檚 success.

A new data foundation

In the Transformation category, Electrica Furnizare came out on top. The starting point was a fragmented system in which data was scattered and an overarching overview was missing. The company鈥檚 existing infrastructure was neither scalable nor able to respond flexibly to growing regulatory and customer requirements. With the introduction of 麻豆原创 S/4HANA combined with 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP), 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions, and 麻豆原创 Business AI, Electrica Furnizare achieved one of the largest transformations in the utility sector. The result: a single, reliable data source for all departments, end-to-end optimized processes, and a solid foundation that paves the way for future innovations and the full deployment of AI capabilities.

Better customer service through comprehensive modernization

Loudoun Water鈥檚 far-reaching modernization project won the Customer Experience category, with the company using 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, 麻豆原创 Service Cloud 2.0, and 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors solutions to optimize its processes. With the introduction of 麻豆原创 Service Cloud 2.0, Loudoun Water is the first utility company worldwide to take this step. The effort paid off: customer service is faster and more modern, work orders are better organized, billing and payments are managed more efficiently, and time tracking for employees has been simplified. The migration was carried out in a single, coordinated step, creating a future-proof, scalable foundation on which Loudoun Water can further expand its position as a technology leader in the industry.

Innovation as a driver of the energy transition

The winners of the first Energy and Utilities Innovation Award demonstrate the wide range of possibilities through which companies in the energy and utilities sector are actively shaping digital transformation. Whether AI-driven decision-making processes, intelligent infrastructure monitoring, or a consistent realignment of the IT landscape, all the projects have one thing in common: they rely on solid foundations, step-by-step implementation, and close collaboration among all stakeholders. Melanie Fiolka, go-to-market & community engagement lead for Utilities at 麻豆原创, summarizes it as follows: 鈥淭he energy and utilities industry is undergoing profound change. The winners of the first Energy and Utilities Innovation Award demonstrate how vision is turned into tangible value through clear strategies, solid data foundations, and the adoption of AI.鈥�

The award makes it clear that innovation in the industry is no longer the exception, but has become a strategic necessity.

The Advanced Success Plan version for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions is designed precisely for this moment. It offers utilities customers a structured, continuously guided approach to maximizing value from 麻豆原创 Customer Experience (麻豆原创 CX) investments, from first adoption through to AI-enabled optimization.

A sector in motion: why customer experience has become strategic for utilities

Four converging forces are making customer experience a boardroom priority for utilities and increasing the demand for structured, expert-led adoption support.

• Energy transition and service complexity: Renewables, EV charging, solar feed-in tariffs, and demand response programs are adding new service dimensions. Customers expect their energy provider to manage this complexity seamlessly.
• Deregulation and customer switching: In liberalized energy markets, customers can, and do, switch providers. The cost of acquisition consistently exceeds the cost of retention. Superior service experience is a measurable retention lever.
• Smart metering and data volume: Smart meter rollouts generate billions of interval readings daily. This data can fuel proactive outreach and personalized billing, but only if the customer experience platform is correctly configured to act on it.
• Regulatory intensity: Billing accuracy mandates, complaint resolution timelines, and outage notification requirements are intensifying. The 麻豆原创 CX portfolio can support compliance when features are correctly activated and configured.

麻豆原创 in utilities: a significant and growing market

Utilities are not a niche segment for 麻豆原创. Understanding the scale of the 麻豆原创 utilities community frames why the Advanced Success Plan for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions matters for this industry in particular. 麻豆原创 is trusted by hundreds of utilities customers globally and is . The investment in the relationship has been made. The question is whether customers are fully using what they have.

With the Advanced Success Plan, customers can turn the 麻豆原创 Customer Experience portfolio into a driver of growth and innovation. They can gain the confidence to act decisively, supported by unlimited expert guidance and intelligent insights that help ensure every feature can deliver measurable business value.

The business case: customer retention over acquisition

For utilities operating in competitive markets, retaining customers has become as strategically important as acquiring new ones. Customers can switch suppliers in minutes via a digital platform, complaint escalation processes are visible on social media, and billing errors in a smart meter world are harder to excuse and faster to escalate.

The 麻豆原创 CX portfolio can address these challenges across the full customer lifecycle. 麻豆原创 Engagement Cloud enables targeted, segmented communications. 麻豆原创 Service Cloud can centralize complaint management and agent interactions. 麻豆原创 Sales Cloud helps manage accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities. 麻豆原创 Commerce Cloud is the听digital sales and self-service storefront layer and can handle how customers discover, compare, purchase, and manage energy products online. What the Advanced Success Plan for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions does is help to ensure these capabilities are not just purchased but adopted, optimized, and continuously improved.

How the Advanced Success Plan structures the adoption journey

The Advanced Success Plan for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions helps organize the adoption journey across four distinct phases, each with a defined purpose and a set of targeted services:

1. Introducing innovation: Identify and prioritize the right innovations for your business. Services here include product guidance sessions covering areas such as utilities session and agent desktop, intelligent selling, campaigns and segmentation, and AI foundation and use case navigator.
2. Adopting innovation: Plan and prepare for structured adoption with minimal risk. Services include the AI process fit-gap analysis, key feature advisory, release guidance, success expert engagement, service planning, value management, innovation checkpoints, and adoption checkpoints.
3. Activation and optimization: Enable hands-on activation of AI and customer experience capabilities in your environment. Services include activation sessions across 麻豆原创 Sales Cloud, 麻豆原创 Service Cloud, 麻豆原创 Marketing Cloud, and 麻豆原创 Engagement Cloud; AI agent activation; embedded AI activation; Joule activation; and technical and functional assistance.
4. Success measurement and continuous improvement: Measure outcomes and sustain momentum through ongoing engagement. Services include a continuous engagement model, release guidance, success expert, value management, innovation checkpoints, and adoption checkpoints.

8 services available to utilities customers鈥攁nd how each one helps

The Advanced Success Plan for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions comprises eight distinct services. Each has a defined scope, a specific business need it addresses, and measurable benefits. For utilities customers, each service connects to a characteristic operational or strategic challenge.

Product guidance
Structured sessions introduce utilities teams to the capabilities most relevant to their context, from meter-read-driven billing notifications in 麻豆原创 Service Cloud to segmented communications in 麻豆原创 Engagement Cloud. The goal is to accelerate time-to-awareness, so teams know what exists before they have to find it.

Key feature advisory
This is curated, customer-specific guidance on which features to activate and in what sequence. For utilities, this means filtering a broad 麻豆原创 CX road map down to the capabilities that matter for smart metering, complaints management, and outage communications then discarding what does not apply.

Release guidance
Every 麻豆原创 CX quarterly release brings dozens of updates. Release guidance helps ensure utilities teams receive a focused brief on what is relevant to their industry context, not a generic list of all product changes, so adoption decisions can be faster and better informed.

Solution review
This is a structured review of the current solution configuration against best practice. For utilities, this commonly surfaces configuration gaps in complaint workflows, billing notification templates, or service agent desktop layouts that erode the customer experience over time if left unaddressed.

Transformation advisory
Strategic guidance connects 麻豆原创 CX capabilities to the outcomes utilities care about most: cost-to-serve reduction, complaint resolution improvement, and regulatory compliance. Transformation advisory helps move the conversation from features to business impact.

Activation
This is hands-on, expert-assisted activation of specific capabilities in the customer’s live environment. For utilities, this includes activating Joule for service agents and enabling AI-driven case categorization in 麻豆原创 Service Cloud. Many autonomous agents or assistants announced at 麻豆原创 Sapphire, once available, can be activated to help guide service agents to process cases.

Technical assistance
Direct technical support across all phases of the engagement covers integration architecture, performance guidance, load testing guidance for mass billing cycles, and resolution of complex system behavior. This service is especially critical for utilities given the high-volume, time-sensitive nature of meter-read processing and month-end billing runs.

Functional assistance
This comprises business process and functional configuration support throughout the engagement. Utilities-specific coverage includes complaint handling workflows, outage notification sequences, and the configuration of billing determinant displays in the service agent desktop, helping to ensure what is built serves the way utilities actually operate.

A practitioner’s perspective

Working directly with utilities customers shows first-hand how the Advanced Success Plan for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions can drive meaningful business value, especially for organizations without deep technical or functional 麻豆原创 CX expertise in-house. Utility companies face a specific set of challenges: complex billing architectures, regulatory requirements, and high customer expectations for responsive service. The right services delivered at the right moment can be genuinely transformational. Four patterns stand out consistently:

1. Bridging the knowledge gap for business users: Unlike system integrators or technical consultants, many utility business teams may not fully grasp the functional nuances required to maximize their 麻豆原创 investment. Value-driven customer success manager engagement becomes critical here by translating technical possibilities into business outcomes, advising on feature adoption, and ensuring cross-team alignment across operations, IT, and customer management. The customer success manager acts as connective tissue between what 麻豆原创 CX can do and what the business needs to achieve.
2. Go-live checks are the foundation for seamless launches: Utilities cannot rely on generic go-live checklists. Are meter reads flowing end-to-end? Are billing determinants and rate structures properly mapped? Are customer service orders integrated with billing and meter management systems? Comprehensive go-live checks built for the utilities context eliminate the guesswork, giving teams confidence that key processes are functioning correctly from day one, not discovered to be broken three months into the first billing cycle.
3. Road map guidance enabling better design decisions: Each 麻豆原创 CX release brings dozens of new features, but only subsets are relevant for a given customer in a given market. Regular, curated road map guidance helps utilities focus on the features and design decisions that will most efficiently drive their specific outcomes, whether that is improving customer satisfaction, streamlining operations, or enriching digital self-service. This targeted approach prevents costly missteps and empowers business stakeholders to make confident decisions without requiring deep product expertise of their own.
4. Early-phase support building for reliability and performance: The early project phase is often when performance issues and integration risks are best addressed, but it is also where internal teams feel least certain. Proactive support that includes performance reviews spanning interconnected billing and service systems, high-level architecture guidance, and utilities-specific load testing helps ensure reliable operation under real-world peak conditions. Utilities processing millions of daily meter reads, running mass billing cycles at month-end, and handling seasonal demand spikes need to know their system will hold before the peak arrives, not after it has passed.

What stronger 麻豆原创 CX adoption looks like in practice

When utilities customers engage with the full Advanced Success Plan for 麻豆原创 Customer experience solutions at the right moments, the outcomes can be concrete and measurable:

• Adoption confidence: Teams understand the 麻豆原创 CX capabilities that matter for their industry and know how to use them. Adoption is driven by guided enablement, not trial and error.
• Configuration quality: Solution reviews and functional assistance can ensure complaint workflows, billing notifications, and service processes are correctly configured, reducing workarounds and support volume.
• Release relevance: Every quarterly 麻豆原创 CX update is assessed for utilities relevance. Teams receive a focused brief on what to adopt, not a generic list of all product changes.
• AI activation at pace: Joule, embedded AI agents, and 麻豆原创 Engagement Cloud intelligence features are activated with expert assistance, helping to move from available-in-catalogue to live-in-production for utilities use cases.
• Integration reliability: Standard integrations between 麻豆原创 Service Cloud and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Utilities are correctly configured, giving agents real-time access to meter history, billing data, and service orders.
• Transformation clarity: Transformation advisory connects the 麻豆原创 CX road map to the outcomes utilities care about most: cost-to-serve reduction, complaint resolution improvement, and regulatory compliance.

A service portfolio built for the complexity of utilities

The 麻豆原创 investment in the utilities sector is substantial and well-established. Utilities organizations around the world have already deployed the 麻豆原创 CX portfolio and are running their customer operations on it. The question is not whether they have access to world-class customer experience capabilities, but whether they are fully using what they have.

The eight services described above, combined with customer success manager-led perspectives on go-live quality, road map relevance, and performance assurance, represent a comprehensive framework for utilities organizations to realize the full potential of their 麻豆原创 CX investment.

The Advanced Success Plan for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions is not a generic offering. When applied with industry focus and customer success manager expertise, it becomes a strategic asset, one that helps utilities deliver on the promise of a superior customer experience in an increasingly competitive, regulated, and technically complex market.

Rajeev Ranjan is product manager for the Advanced Success Plan for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience.
Tara Tracey is global product owner for the Advanced Success Plan for 麻豆原创 Customer Experience.

Managing abundance

These are just some of the challenges facing KETRACO, , as Africa鈥檚 energy sector is undergoing a shift from a centralized power system to a more diversified, renewable-energy-based grid.

鈥淩enewable energy is abundant. The real challenge is how to manage, integrate, and stabilize it,鈥� Dr. Njogu Kimando, energy expert at KETRACO, said, speaking at the TAC Insights conference for in Toulouse. 鈥淭he energy transition is not constrained by capacity, but by our ability to manage complexity in real time.鈥�

Geothermal power generated in the Great Rift Valley provides about 40% of electricity in the region, making Kenya Africa鈥檚 largest geothermal producer. About 24% is generated by hydro power from rivers. The rest of the demand is met by wind power coming mostly from Lake Turkana, Africa鈥檚 largest wind farm, as well as solar. The fastest growing sector, solar is widely used in rural homes and businesses. Kenya has one of the highest household solar adoption rates in the world.

While renewables reduce costs, support climate alignment, and provide energy security, challenges include drought-induced water shortages, sun and wind variability and grid instability.

Lack of synchronized intelligence

In the traditional grid, power is generated at a few centralized plants, creating a stable source of supply that is easy to control based on demand forecasts. The renewables (REN) grid, on the other hand, fluctuates with the weather, requiring real-time monitoring, rapid balancing, and more dynamic system control.

The core challenge in modern power systems is not the absence of data, but the lack of unified, real-time visibility across fragmented systems. This lack limits the ability to make timely and coordinated operational decisions. 

鈥淲e鈥檙e constantly balancing supply and demand,鈥� Kimando explained. 鈥淲e have limited real-time visibility across generation sources, transmission assets, and demand patterns.鈥�

As renewables expand, KETRACO鈥檚 role has evolved from simply building and operating transmission lines to managing power flows in real time, coordinating variable energy generation, and ensuring grid stability and reliability. The company is relying on digital systems to accomplish these tasks.

Kimando outlined the company鈥檚 new, integrated smart grid infrastructure. Forming an end-to-end digital value chain, it functions as the digital twin foundation for the grid and links operational technology with enterprise systems and advanced analytics.

Data is captured by SCADA, an industrial control system for infrastructure and utility networks, and is securely routed through 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform middleware to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, which serves as the enterprise backbone. It is here that operational data is translated into structured business processes.听

From data to decisions

鈥淲e鈥檙e relying on 麻豆原创 technology to transform that raw data into predictive, actionable intelligence,鈥� said Kimando, citing asset lifecycle management and outage reduction metrics as examples of ways to shift from reactive maintenance to predictive grid reliability. 鈥淒igital transformation is no longer a technology choice, but a strategic necessity. It鈥檚 a balancing game: values versus risks.鈥�

For KETRACO, the goal is to unlock the full value of renewable energy while avoiding the escalating risks of operating in a complex and dynamic power environment. Inaction leads to grid instability and operational inefficiency, underutilization of energy investments, rising costs, and exposure to regulatory and compliance risks. Action based on data analytics leads to improved financial efficiency and better CAPEX decisions. It also leads to enhanced operational resilience with reduced outages and faster system recovery.

鈥淭ogether, this strengthens our strategic positioning for the energy transition and ESG compliance,鈥� Kimando explained.

The next frontier

At KETRACO, AI is considered a capacity multiplier, enabling a crucial shift from resource-intensive grid expansion to intelligence-driven grid optimization. 

鈥淎I is helping us achieve more with the same workforce. We鈥檙e enabling engineers, not replacing them,鈥� the expert shared. 鈥淎utomation is enabling our people to focus more on predictability and decision making.鈥�

In addition, AI supports long-term sustainability goals because simulating scenarios before investing reduces errors and costs. It also enables self-optimized grid operations, reducing manual interventions and improving collaboration and integration among regional power systems and cross-border energy flows.

KETRACO鈥檚 role is to transmit electricity across Kenya and connect the country to the wider East African power market. Its importance is growing as Kenya has become a REN hub, expanding its geothermal, wind, and hydropower generation. Without its transmission infrastructure, much of Kenya鈥檚 renewable energy could not be delivered efficiently to consumers or neighboring countries.

In closing, Kimando summarized how digital transformation is changing the way power is managed, stabilized, and optimized: REN presents a system challenge, not a technological one. Technology must align to operations and strategy, control is achieved through visibility and integration, and partnerships accelerate scale and execution.

鈥淭he future grid will not be defined by how much power we generate, but by how intelligently we manage it,鈥� he concluded.

鈥淲e operate primarily to serve the needs of our customers and communities, so reliability is critical to SRP,鈥� Drake Winfrey, ERP solution architect at Salt River Project, said. 鈥淲e must ensure that anything we implement within our technology ecosystem doesn鈥檛 impact that reliability in any way鈥攁nd, ultimately, enables our team members to deliver the best possible service.鈥�

WalkMe鈥檚 superpower to work seamlessly on top of 麻豆原创 and non-麻豆原创 systems helps ensure technology enables reliability without disruption. SRP鈥檚 first encounter with WalkMe was part of its 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors implementation. At the time, Winfrey was the IT administrator for 麻豆原创 Concur solutions at SRP and, based on the success of the 麻豆原创 SuccessFactors implementation, saw an opportunity to add WalkMe in its travel and expense processes.

鈥淥ur employees only travel maybe once or twice a year, so no matter how user-friendly the system may be, there鈥檚 always going to be some pain points and friction,鈥� Winfrey said. And, for those who travel frequently, the SRP team knew they could benefit from in-app guidance to ensure processes were completed quickly and accurately.

It was a perfect use case for . At 麻豆原创 Sapphire Orlando, Winfrey shared five wins that Salt River Project experienced by applying WalkMe to its processes.

1 Greater process efficiency

At SRP, there are several standard expense reports that employees can submit in Concur Expense, such as personal mileage, safety gear, and telework.

To improve process efficiency, Winfrey built 鈥攕tep-by-step solutions that guide users through a series of actions to help complete a task鈥攖hat direct SRP employees through the report completion and submission process. 鈥淲ith WalkMe, we automate some of the fields and fill in critical information for the user, taking away some of those hidden dependencies,鈥� he said.

This proactive, in-flow guidance not only creates a simplified user experience for SRP employees when submitting expenses, but it has domino effects on IT support overhead. Since employees get the in-app guidance they need as they鈥檙e completing key steps, they submit reports accurately the first time, reducing support tickets or time spent correcting inaccurate submissions. 鈥淲e鈥檝e eliminated a lot of the support tickets and hand-holding we saw previously,鈥� Winfrey said.

2 Risk mitigation and improved compliance

Winfrey applied WalkMe solutions in SRP鈥檚 payroll system to help with policy reinforcement. By adding in-app reminders, especially during important times of the year like holidays, SRP ensures employees are following procedures, boosting data and process accuracy.

When users log in to the system, they see in-app pop-up messages to remind them about key dates, such as time card due dates and approval timelines, and can opt to take action immediately or receive a reminder. If the user opts to act, they鈥檙e automatically redirected to the company鈥檚 time and attendance system via another WalkMe solution. 鈥淲alkMe solutions are very simple to build and deploy鈥攁nd very effective compared to e-mails or chasing down people at the end of the pay period,鈥� Winfrey said. He knows this for a fact because he can use WalkMe analytics to see how many users have viewed the in-app reminder and how many have clicked through to the time card. 鈥淚t鈥檚 all reportable,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here are a lot of metrics behind the scenes that you can use to understand trends and find ways to improve the experience.鈥�

3 Faster cycle times

Making changes to enterprise-wide systems can take time, as organizations are often constrained to the development cycles set by the IT department. 鈥淎t SRP, we have monthly releases, so unless it鈥檚 a critical update or fix, getting a change is usually going to take a few weeks,鈥� Winfrey said. 鈥淏ut with WalkMe, I can build and deploy content in 15 to 30 minutes.鈥�

This agility is especially powerful for real-time communication and keeping the employee experience seamless. For example, Winfrey explained how SRP can instantly support users during routine system updates or maintenance windows. When a specific tile requires temporary maintenance, Winfrey鈥檚 team can immediately place a real-time message directly over the feature. This keeps employees informed and guides them to alternative workflows, ensuring business continuity and a smooth user experience while IT completes its work behind the scenes.

4 Boosted cost efficiency

Empowering employees with self-service support 鈥渇rees up their time for more value-added activities. By achieving this impact, my team can deliver enterprise-wide value without increasing headcount,鈥� Winfrey said.

鈥淲e use WalkMe and the analytics it provides to look at different pages and see where the friction is and what processes are causing issues,鈥� he explained. 鈥淭hen we look at the support tickets and say 鈥極kay, these are the same questions we get on this screen every time, so we鈥檒l build a self-support solution.鈥欌�� A user can then see those top support questions in the flow of work and get guided assistance. As a result, they鈥檙e able to complete the task themselves. No help ticket required.

5 Enhanced digital user experience

Optimizing the digital employee experience means empowering employees with the digital tools and support needed to perform at their best. SRP uses WalkMe to anticipate user needs and ensure seamless change during major UI transitions. Using highly visual, contextual callouts like targeted Launchers that connect users to resources, eye-catching ShoutOuts for feature adoption, and Banner Reminders for critical updates, the team delivers personalized support that provides a unified, consistent user experience across multiple enterprise applications. 鈥湴粘蟊鸢疴�檚 just a lot of flexibility and, honestly, a lot of creativity鈥� about the solutions they can deploy, Winfrey said.

What鈥檚 more, WalkMe solutions exist on top of current system landscapes. 鈥淎s we continue to see everything moving to the cloud, it鈥檚 all about clean core,鈥� he added. 鈥淚 think we鈥檙e going to be limited on what we can customize going forward.鈥�

What鈥檚 next for WalkMe at SRP

Salt River Project is building on its success with WalkMe solutions and establishing a center of excellence to better balance central governance and cross-departmental collaboration. 鈥淚n order to scale it, we really have to start building department-level WalkMe experts who know how to develop impactful content,鈥� Winfrey said.

It鈥檚 clear: with WalkMe, Salt River Project can improve process efficiency, strengthen compliance, accelerate change, reduce support burden, and create a better digital experience for employees. As SRP expands its internal WalkMe expertise, it is positioning itself to scale those gains across the business while maintaining the high operational standards the organization is known for.

AI works when the foundation is right 

The energy and utilities sector is investing heavily in AI. Business听leaders worldwide are embracing artificial intelligence to increase efficiency, unlock new business models, and prepare for the energy transition. A successful proof of concept is often the first milestone鈥攂ut it marks only the beginning. 罢丑别听real challenge听lies in scaling pilot projects across the entire听organization.听

In this context, the time and effort听required听for a full implementation听is听frequently听underestimated. Around six months are needed to build a robust data foundation. A further听12听months pass before initial results manifest in the form of a measurable return on investment. Large-scale rollout can take another three years. The reasons for this are manifold:听

• Unrealistic expectations: Many people use AI in their daily lives for simple tasks and expect similarly seamless effects in complex enterprise environments. 
• Legacy infrastructure: Historically grown system landscapes cannot be transformed overnight. 
• Regulatory complexity: In regulated industries such as electricity, gas, and water supply, compliance requirements are particularly high. They must be factored into every architectural decision from the very beginning. 
• Lack of AI-specific talent: What is needed are people who genuinely understand both the business and AI. This bridge between IT and the business side will become increasingly important in the future. 
• Organizational听change management:听Technology alone is not enough. Organizational transformation is and听remains听the decisive success factor.听

From AI hype to real value 

Building a new application is听only the first听step.听On the path to scaling, lifecycle management, identity and access management, security, compliance, and governance must all be consistently taken into account.听Release management, testing, and continuous improvement processes add further complexity.听鈥湴粘蟊鹛齝ompanies听that听invest in the right foundation today will benefit from AI to its full extent tomorrow,鈥� says Andre Bechtold,听president and听head of 麻豆原创 Industries & Experiences.听

For companies, this means overcoming fragmented data silos and developing an integrated data strategy. Legacy systems must be integrated into a modern data and AI platform on which AI models can genuinely create value. Torsten Welte,听head of Energy & Natural Resources Industries听at 麻豆原创,听summarizes听it as follows:听“AI is fundamentally transforming the energy industry. The business must understand what is technologically possible. And IT must understand what the business needs.”听

听can听provide听the听essential foundation for this. AI is already natively embedded in the suite in the form of Joule. This听can open up听concrete use cases for the energy industry:听in the area of asset management and predictive maintenance, utilities听can听proactively manage assets and grids before disruptions occur. The Utilities Customer Self-Service Agent, in turn, enables 24/7 self-service for customers and can reduce service costs by up to 90%.听

Distributed energy requires intelligent networking 

The topic of听distributed听energy听resources (DER) remains of听central importance. In the past, energy flowed in only one direction: from the power plant to consumers. In the future, it will be bidirectional. Consumers听that听generate their own energy will actively feed it back into the grid.听

DER听describes precisely听this principle: the generation of electricity through millions of decentralized resources such as solar panels, EV chargers, heat pumps, and battery storage systems听by听consumers and so-called听prosumers. These assets generate vast amounts of data. Their orchestration听represents听one of the key challenges of the energy transition.听

The 听solution听provides a platform听for听a听single source听of truth: technical assets, commercial contracts, and customer data are brought together in a coherent data model. This helps create the foundation for new business models such as smart tariffs, dynamic pricing, energy sharing, and demand response.

麻豆原创 consistently relies on a growing partner network built around its own data platform. Markus Bechmann,听global VP and听co-head听of听Industry Business Unit Utilities听at 麻豆原创, describes it this听way:听“Dynamic pricing and smart tariffs are no longer distant concepts.听They听are the business models听of听tomorrow. With 麻豆原创, energy providers already have the technological foundation today to seize these opportunities.”听

麻豆原创 Experience Centers: experiencing AI, not just discussing it 

To make AI tangible, 麻豆原创 Experience Centers offer visitors the opportunity to experience AI in real-world scenarios beyond classic demo environments. One central example is the 麻豆原创 Energy Park in Walldorf. Using real infrastructure on the campus, 麻豆原创 demonstrates how the company itself is implementing the energy transition. This includes e-mobility, intelligent asset management, and energy communities. 

A new chapter for the energy industry 

The 麻豆原创 for Energy & Utilities Conference in Toulouse has once again demonstrated that AI in the energy industry is no longer a topic for the future. However, the path from pilot project to company-wide transformation requires more than technological enthusiasm. To meet the challenges of the energy transition, what is needed鈥攁longside technological innovation鈥攊s a solid foundation of data, processes, and organization.

He mentioned driverless cars in San Francisco, autonomous drones conducting warfare, and robots that are trained to care for humans as real humans would. Speaking at the recent TAC Insights sponsored conference featuring , Weber admitted he finds it all rather scary, but also very exciting.

For an energy company operating critical infrastructure, this pace of technological change is not just fascinating or frightening鈥攊t creates a responsibility to adopt innovation in a controlled, resilient, and purpose鈥慸riven way.

Riding the waves

Weber sees these developments as a continuation of various “big waves” of technology that keep touching our hearts and minds as they shape the world around us. Who can imagine the world without the internet? Who can deny that the mobile phone didn鈥檛 revolutionize the consumption of IT when people started expecting the same ease of use in the workplace?

鈥淎I is creating the same response,” Weber explained. “ChatGPT makes my life easier at home solving gardening issues, so I expect it to make my life easier at work.鈥�

One of E.ON鈥檚 biggest challenges is closing the widening gap between the rapid pace of technological innovation in the outside world and the organization鈥檚 internal ability, shaped by its structure and DNA, to absorb and implement these changes effectively.

This tension became evident when leadership questioned whether sustained IT spending at large scale was justifiable. It soon became clear that continuous investment is the price of system stability, affordability, and resilience in a digitized energy system if E.ON is serious about becoming the leading playmaker in Europe鈥檚 green energy transformation.

To achieve this ambition, the company has defined three strategic priorities鈥攇rowth, sustainability, and digitalization鈥攔ecognizing that falling behind in digital capabilities would carry far greater long-term costs.

鈥淏ringing the system up to speed requires internal readiness. It means we must think deeply about investments, prioritization, and most importantly, people and culture,鈥� said Weber. 鈥淥ne thing is sure: we won鈥檛 be going back to what was normal speed before.鈥�

Becoming strategic

E.ON operates across three domains: energy grid, customer solutions, and energy infrastructure solutions. 听This broad scope creates a high level of operational complexity, requiring scalable, transparent, and collaborative ways of working across the organization.

To meet these challenges, E.ON is strengthening its internal capabilities and investing in its people. By expanding in-house expertise, the company has welcomed over 1,000 specialists, including more than 500 in data and 300 in cybersecurity, fostering greater ownership, collaboration, and innovation across the organization.

This move reflects a broader philosophy. IT is no longer just a support function; it is foundational to pioneering the energy transition and delivering competitive advantage.

As E.ON鈥檚 transformation unfolds against a backdrop of rapid technological evolution, AI is at the heart of the current inflection point. Technologies like AI-powered assistants and automation tools are not novelties; they are actively redefining how customers interact with services. E.ON recognizes this shift and is embedding advanced technologies directly into its core systems, rather than treating them as add-ons.

Closing the gap

Weber explained that digital transformation at E.ON means putting the right technology into the core of the business to better serve its 47 million customers.

It starts with platform standardization, followed by cloud ERP transformation and the 麻豆原创 S/4HANA migration. Instead of building fragmented custom solutions, this strategy allows the company to integrate leading technologies into a cohesive architecture, ensuring scalability while avoiding unnecessary complexity. These basic investments in foundational infrastructure have delivered tangible results, including an 77% reduction in IT downtime within five years.

A key lesson from E.ON鈥檚 journey is the importance of embedding digital capabilities into the heart of operations. 鈥淲e鈥檝e moved away from isolated innovation hubs such as digital labs or experimental ‘garages’ in favor of integrating digital tools directly into business processes,鈥� Weber explained.

While innovation is essential, E.ON places equal emphasis on governance and control. Managing a digital ecosystem at this scale requires strong oversight to ensure security, consistency, and cost discipline. The company implemented centralized governance structures, including standardized contracting and unified IT system management to help maintain control without stifling innovation.

Equally important is investment in people. Through targeted training and capacity building initiatives, employees are empowered to turn new technologies into measurable business impact.

Harnessing AI

As with many companies, AI is at the center of E.ON鈥檚 forward-looking strategy, but the company is approaching it with deliberate caution. Rather than rushing to build proprietary platforms, E.ON is leveraging partnerships with established technology providers while maintaining flexibility in its IT portfolio. This approach allows the company to explore the potential of AI in customer service automation, predictive maintenance, and operational optimization without overcommitting to unproven solutions.

鈥淚n essence, our experience highlights a broader truth about digital transformation,鈥� said the IT expert. 鈥淪uccess really depends on balance. We absolutely must push innovation forward, but not at the expense of stability, cyber security or governance.鈥�

Equally, digital tools alone are not enough. Without proper training and alignment with business needs, even the most advanced technologies can fail to deliver value. E.ON addresses this through a “BizDevOps” mindset, ensuring that digital initiatives are an integral part of business goals and supported by the right capabilities.

In summary, E.ON鈥檚 transformation illustrates what it takes to modernize at scale in a complex, highly regulated industry. By doubling down on IT investment, bringing expertise in house, and adopting a disciplined yet forward-looking approach to innovation, the company has positioned itself for the future of energy.

The result is not only improved system performance or reduced downtime. It鈥檚 a fundamental shift in how technology drives business success, turning technology into a cornerstone of making new energy work鈥攔eliably, affordably, and at scale.

From energy sharing and dynamic pricing to cloud-native and interoperable flexibility markets, the solution can connect meters, markets, and customers to enable business models such as energy communities, virtual power plants, and demand response. Combined with a curated ecosystem of specialist technology partners, 麻豆原创 empowers utilities to own their energy transition.听

The energy transition runs on data, but data is getting harder to manage 

The energy transition is reshaping the power landscape. Utilities are evolving from centralized generation toward systems powered by millions of distributed energy resources: solar panels, EV chargers, heat pumps, and batteries owned by consumers and听prosumers听alike. The number of connected assets is growing rapidly, generating vast amounts of operational, commercial, and customer data. Managing this听data reliably and consistently is one of the defining challenges of the next energy decade.听

At the same time, digital energy platforms and new market entrants are intermediating the customer relationship, offering integrated propositions that bundle connectivity, flexibility, and billing into a single stack. Utilities that do not act risk being reduced to commodity providers.

To unlock the value of distributed energy resources, utilities need more than connectivity. They need听data orchestration:听a trusted, intelligent foundation that harmonizes听information across every process, partner, and device and ensures they听own rather than rent听their energy transition capabilities.听

From distributed assets to orchestrated intelligence 

罢丑别听麻豆原创 Distributed Energy Resources听solution is designed to听meet exactly听this challenge. Built on 麻豆原创 BTP, it enables utilities to manage distributed energy resources-related data at scale across production, consumption, and storage while helping to ensure reliability, performance, and consistency.听

Rather than acting as an operational control system, 麻豆原创 DER focuses on data orchestration and integration. It helps ensure that distributed energy resources data can flow seamlessly between operational, commercial, and analytical systems, providing a single source of truth that can connect the physical and digital worlds of energy. 

鈥淭he complexity our customers face with prosumer data is exponential. They need reliability, performance, and consistency across all their data sources, and that鈥檚 exactly where 麻豆原创 Distributed Energy Resources comes in.鈥� 

Kim Maren Ekrutt, Global Industry Business Unit Utilities Co鈥慔ead, 麻豆原创 

Two pillars of the 麻豆原创 DER solution 

1. Complex installation and prosumer data orchestration: technical and commercial foundation

Manage the full spectrum of prosumer-related data, covering both complex technical installation details, such as meters, solar panels, batteries, EV chargers, and heat pumps, and the commercial information required to operate distributed energy resources at scale. This includes customer and prosumer master data, product structures, tariffs, contracts, grid connection agreements, feed-in contracts, and all commercial relationships linked to each installation. 

By bringing together technical asset data with commercial attributes and agreement information, the solution can provide a unified and reliable model of every installation. This is essential because distributed energy resources cannot be managed with technical information alone. Commercial products, grid contracts, flexible tariffs, and incentive agreements determine how energy flows are measured, settled, billed, shared, or monetized. 

This pillar becomes the foundation for energy communities, virtual power plant participation, flexibility programs, dynamic pricing, capacity and congestion management, and any business model involving prosumers and distributed energy assets. 

2. Energy management and sharing 

Track and analyze听how energy is consumed, produced, stored, and shared, enabling new energy community and peer-to-peer听business models. With high-resolution energy data and intelligent allocation algorithms, utilities can offer transparent, fair, and regulation-compliant energy sharing services to residential and commercial participants alike.听

Connecting data, processes, and people 

Utilities already rely on 麻豆原创 for mission-critical processes such as meter to cash, asset management, and customer experience. 麻豆原创 DER can extend this foundation, linking every asset, agreement, and customer interaction within one coherent data model. This integrated approach helps turn technical data into business value, powering use cases such as smart tariffs, dynamic pricing, and energy sharing. For utilities, this means a single enterprise backbone that can connect the traditional meter-to-cash world with the emerging flexibility and distributed energy resources economy. 

A partner ecosystem for the energy flexibility market 

No single vendor can address the full breadth of the distributed energy landscape. 麻豆原创 has assembled a curated ecosystem of specialist technology partners, each bringing deep domain expertise that complements 麻豆原创鈥檚 enterprise data platform. Data stays with the utility, business logic听remains听under their control, and the customer relationship belongs to them.听

麻豆原创鈥檚 technology partners extend the platform across six critical domains: 

• Flexibility management and virtual power plants:听Orchestrate and monetize听prosumer听assets, including EVs, batteries, heat pumps, and solar inverters, for flexibility markets and smart charging services.听
• Energy communities and energy sharing:听Design and听operate听energy communities with transparent allocation, dynamic local pricing, and full regulatory compliance.听
• Grid congestion and capacity management:听Forecast, detect, and resolve grid congestion at the low-voltage-network-level while unlocking flexibility revenues.听
• Energy portfolio management and trading:听Access wholesale and flexibility markets with听real-time听pricing, dynamic quotations, and risk management.听
• Customer insights and energy disaggregation:听Deliver behind-the-meter visibility through non-intrusive load monitoring and appliance-level analytics.听
• Demand response and load management:听Design and execute demand response programs, combining customer incentives, dynamic pricing, and automated device control.听

鈥淥ur role is to help utilities master the growing data complexity and turn it into opportunity. With 麻豆原创 Distributed Energy Resources and our partner ecosystem, we鈥檙e connecting data, processes, and partners into one intelligent platform that enables utilities to own their energy transition.鈥� 

Kim Maren Ekrutt, Global VP & Co-Head Industry Business Unit Utilities

About 麻豆原创 Distributed Energy Resources 

麻豆原创 Distributed Energy Resources provides utilities with a public cloud platform to help model, manage, and share distributed energy resources data across operational and commercial domains. Integrated with 麻豆原创鈥檚 core utilities portfolio and a curated global partner ecosystem, it can enable reliable data exchange, smart energy management, and customer-centric innovation for the distributed energy era.听

Mateu Munar is senior director of Industry Business Unit Utilities at 麻豆原创.

Philipp L眉bcke, CIO at Th眉ringer Energie AG, has worked in the industry for 20 years and is thrilled by the dynamism it is currently going through. But that wasn鈥檛 always the case. 鈥淲hen I got started in the energy sector, the business was relatively static, and I鈥檒l admit that I was tempted by other industries over the last decade,鈥� he says. Today, he no longer sees any need to change. Just the opposite, in fact: in recent years, the business 鈥渉as become extremely exciting, and it will stay exciting,鈥� L眉bcke adds.

To understand his enthusiasm, all it takes is a look at his current employer, TEAG. The company, headquartered in Erfurt and with over 2,200 employees, supplies households and businesses with electricity, natural gas, heating, and water. It also added a telecommunications subsidiary to its portfolio several years ago, which offers broadband access, mobile telephony, and additional services such as storage. It has a new subsidiary for electromobility and another for photovoltaics.

In addition to these new business areas, the company鈥檚 core business鈥攕upplying electricity鈥攊s undergoing drastic changes. L眉bcke emphasizes: 鈥淭he energy transition is irreversible, and that doesn鈥檛 only mean the end of nuclear power, but also the end of coal-fired generation in the long term.鈥�

Decarbonization requires decentralization and digitalization

The future lies in the central supply of natural gas and hydrogen through power plants, along with decentralized power generation through photovoltaics and wind power, according to L眉bcke. 鈥淲e give the municipalities in Thuringia all the support we can when it comes to executing the transition locally,鈥� he says. To succeed, this energy transition requires perfect coordination of what experts refer to as 鈥渢he three big Ds鈥�: decarbonization requires decentralization, which in turn is only possible with maximum digitalization. 

Which brings us to 麻豆原创, TEAG鈥檚 largest and most important strategic partner. In 2022, TEAG decided to move all its core processes for the energy sector鈥攎eter reading, billing, device management, contract and customer management, information exchange, and subledger accounting鈥攖o 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud in the long term. 鈥淭hat made us the first energy supplier with a comprehensive听,鈥� L眉bcke says. 鈥淭he energy sector is undergoing fundamental change, and data interchange within the companies will increase significantly. Decentralization and maximum digitalization mean that we will be processing much more data much faster, offering a variety of new cloud services based on AI, and creating many more automated decision-making processes.鈥� All of which will require maximum integration and high-quality master data. And they also need the right partner.

Learning to manage complex projects

TEAG intends to migrate all seven of its deployed systems that manage master data to the new platform incrementally, a plan that has been divided into three large-scale projects. The first involved the implementation of the 麻豆原创 S/4HANA core鈥攊nitially on premise鈥攊ncluding master data cleansing and version management of large amounts of legacy data. This project, which has been completed in the interim, involved around 200 internal employees and externals. Along the way, the team gained the ability to manage even complex 麻豆原创 projects.听

In the second step, TEAG implemented 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Utilities, an ERP solution specifically for energy suppliers, together with the 麻豆原创 Customer Experience portfolio based on 麻豆原创 Service Cloud, divided into the three market roles of electricity supplier, grid operator, and metering point operation. This project has been underway for 18 months, and TEAG will go live with it on December 1, 2025, initially with the role of electricity supplier.

Last but not least, the third transformation project involves implementing听 for workforce management. To this end, the company developed a road map in 2024, 鈥渟o we can optimally leverage everything we need for this,鈥� L眉bcke says.

Demographic change is forcing the transition

The utility company aims to decommission all its current 麻豆原创 systems by the end of 2027 and move them to 麻豆原创 S/4HANA Cloud. The fact that TEAG has decided to run its central applications in the cloud in the long term, in addition to going all-in on 麻豆原创, is a result of the fourth 鈥渂ig D鈥� in this story: demographics. 鈥淲e won鈥檛 be able to completely replace the many employees who will be retiring in the next 10 years,鈥� L眉bcke says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 why we need to become more independent of labor-intensive processes overall.鈥�

Working in the cloud means getting a boost from AI

The company鈥檚 cloud strategy supports this goal, because it means TEAG will not only need less expensive hardware in the future but it will also require fewer highly-trained people to run and provide the systems. 听

And people who work in the cloud鈥攚ith the resulting consistent focus on platform strategy and standardization鈥攃an take advantage of artificial intelligence in many areas. Take , for example. This copilot is based on generative AI and learns from 麻豆原创 data to help give users context-sensitive support.

All in all, 鈥淚T will take center stage more than ever for energy suppliers,鈥� L眉bcke says. 鈥淎nd business IT is also getting closer to key business decisions than ever before. That鈥檚 what gives the job so much variety and makes it so exciting.鈥�

And it will certainly protect the TEAG CIO from temptation from other industries in the future.

Daniela Haldy-Sellmann, global VP and head of Energy & Utilities Industries at 麻豆原创, spoke about key trends and the role of new technologies and gave her take on the future of the utilities sector.

Q: What do you see as the challenges and opportunities for the energy sector today?

A: In Germany and across Europe, we have a decentralized market in which a variety of players generate, transmit, distribute, and supply power. The challenge for energy suppliers is to make their pricing and services more attractive. So they are no longer just selling electricity or gas, they are also focusing on building customer loyalty and on fostering interaction between themselves and their customers. As for consumers, they want transparency about whether the electricity they are using really is 鈥済reen,鈥� and whether they can produce energy themselves鈥攂y installing solar panels, for example.

Energy suppliers are completely rethinking their offerings as a result, which is also putting pressure on their competitors to become true market leaders and to align their offerings with those of conventional retailers. On the distribution side, we are seeing how more and more energy is being generated outside the grid and then being fed into it鈥攆rom smaller sources such as residential solar installations to large, new B2B plants. The energy market is in a period of disruption, which is inevitably affecting energy prices and driving the need for products and services that are viable in the long term. With energy providers’ profit margins shrinking dramatically, additional energy services will become their main source of income.

Decentralization was one of the major talking points at the conference. In that context, could you explain what 鈥渄istributed energy resources鈥� are?

Traditionally, our energy has been generated in large, centralized power plants and sent鈥攊n one direction, via a transmission system operator and distribution system operator鈥攖o consumers. In the future, the flow of energy will be bidirectional, because now, in addition to large conventional generation plants and a growing number of sustainable alternatives such as onshore and offshore wind parks and solar parks, we also have consumers who produce their own energy and feed it into the grid. (DER) refers to the assets that consumers and businesses have for generating power and distributing it through a grid that, in the future, will allow that energy to flow in two directions rather than one.

How does 麻豆原创 help suppliers manage distributed energy resources?

Our enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can already cover all of a company鈥檚 core processes. For transmission and distribution system operators, that means all of their network assets, including power grids, generation plants, and substations, right up to the point of consumption. What we at 麻豆原创 are now doing is providing transparency for meter operators, grid operators, and energy providers about the systems and devices consumers have installed in their homes. This data used to be highly unstructured. Now, thanks to our measurement concept management component, energy providers can map data for consumers who have an EV charger, solar panels, battery storage, or a heat pump, and use it to plan their capacity. They know, for instance, how much power a solar installation generates and what its maximum capacity is. So when a surplus occurs, they can remove any excess power from the grid or, in the event of a shortage, have their customers feed more energy into it. Depending on the scenario, the 麻豆原创 software can analyze meter data from the cloud, format it, and make it available. Energy providers integrate this data into their DER platform to provide transparency about consumption and to allow an appropriate level of control over the power entering and leaving the grid.

Which solutions does 麻豆原创 offer for managing sustainability goals and compliance?

麻豆原创鈥檚 sustainability portfolio is extensive. It provides answers to questions such as 鈥淲hat are my supply chain emissions?” and “What emissions does a specific product I supply or manufacture produce?鈥� Having this information means that, first, companies have proof for an auditor of the precise emission values per product. And second, that they can track those emissions to see, for example, how the values change. They can show that they use various technologies, that their products meet all the current environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards, and that they can prepare not only consolidated financial statements but consolidated emissions reports as well. Here, 麻豆原创 offers and . Then we have the 麻豆原创 Green Token solution and , which aligns carbon and financial data.

Did 麻豆原创 present a use case at the conference?

Yes. We presented the , which can show me exactly how much energy is being generated overall, how much I am producing, and how I can use it. Whether you鈥檙e a consumer, an energy provider, or a transmission system operator, you want an accurate picture of how much energy you have available, or need, to keep the power supply in the area or region you cover stable鈥攂ecause that鈥檚 what matters most.

What is 麻豆原创鈥檚 strategy for utilities?

We help our customers migrate from their existing 麻豆原创 ERP Central Component (麻豆原创 ECC) and 麻豆原创 S/4HANA IS-U systems to a cloud-based to help ensure that they have a consistent data layout. The standardized digital core with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA is complemented by flexible cloud solutions for customer management and more.

The transition in the energy industry is also about shifting toward a greater reliance on renewable energy, phasing out fossil fuels, and helping companies in the sector diversify their product and service portfolios. We are seeing, for example, more and more oil and gas companies expanding into biodiesel and other biofuels. We’re seeing new carbon capture technologies emerge and huge investments in hydrogen, though these need to increase dramatically. And that is exactly what 麻豆原创鈥檚 strategy is designed to support by providing an application landscape with a clean core model in which the latest innovations can be readily adopted.

What excites you the most about working at the intersection of technology, sustainability, and the utility industry?

I鈥檝e had jobs in many different industries, including automotive, manufacturing, high tech, and healthcare. But the energy sector is where I see the most collaboration and the most disruption. If you look at the net-zero and carbon-neutral targets that we need to achieve in Germany, Europe, and worldwide, and at the money being poured into renewables and green bonds, this is an industry with enormous opportunities for growth and investment. Technology is the backbone of everything, and we at 麻豆原创 are contributing to the energy transition not only by simplifying processes for consumers, but also by developing technologies that fundamentally change the options that are open to them.

This article also appeared on the German 麻豆原创 News Center.

As the company expanded, ONTRAS sought better visibility across its operations, especially those carried out by service providers. Manual communication interfaces led to information loss, hindering operational efficiency and service quality. To address these challenges, ONTRAS aimed to improve field operations with offline capabilities, ensuring better data integrity for uninterrupted operations and much faster response times.

After thorough research, the German utility company implemented smart forms within to capture and monitor real-time data from its field operations. supported ONTRAS throughout the implementation process, serving as the interface to 麻豆原创 and customizing and enhancing 麻豆原创 Field Service Management, including customizing the 麻豆原创 Field Service Management, connector for 麻豆原创 ERP, in order to meet the company鈥檚 specific requirements.

Faster process runtime with improved data visibility at ONTRAS

Working with a large external staff and a dispersed system led to a significant data gap.

Ines Kurmies, an 麻豆原创 specialist at ONTRAS, explained: “Our internal staff extracted data from 麻豆原创, while external staff used a manual Excel logging process, which made it difficult to understand the status of orders.鈥�

The external staff was receiving the orders through the 麻豆原创 system, but it was not possible to track their work. Feedback was received within the 麻豆原创 system only after completion, and the logs were uploaded to 麻豆原创, which meant the company lacked visibility into the steps in between.

ONTRAS needed a solution to maintain maintenance plans and functional locations within 麻豆原创 while providing access to external service providers via an interface. The company sought comprehensive data integration and a single source of truth with real-time data monitoring.

With the full integration of logs and smart forms, ONTRAS can now guide technicians through tasks, capture data, and provide a structured way to document the inspection process in real-time. Integrating these disparate systems created a single source of truth, helping the company eliminate inefficiencies and data gaps, enabling faster process runtime.

鈥淲ith the full integration of logs and smart forms, we achieved a much faster checklist revision,鈥� Eva Scholl, a maintenance engineer at ONTRAS, shared. 鈥淣ow we have an end-to-end digital process, so the process runtime in itself is one of the greatest benefits.鈥�

Real-time data and comprehensive tracking are crucial for preventative maintenance, rapid response to issues, and compliance.

During a gas pipe fitting inspection, the company’s system creates an order dispatched to a service provider, the responsible specialist, who then assigns it to an assembler. The assembler inspects the fittings, logging their work using smart forms in 麻豆原创 Field Service Management. This information is sent back to the responsible specialist, who reviews and completes the order. Finally, an audit report is generated as a PDF and transferred to 麻豆原创 Plant Maintenance Rapid Mart, where the company can view and process the inspection results. Without this real-time data flow, a faulty fitting might go unnoticed, leading to a gas leak and potential safety hazard.

The company can see what order is dispatched when it is processed and what the status is.

鈥淣ow, field sales representatives have more information and experience less information loss because they directly see the order from us — exactly what we want to see,鈥� Scholl added. 鈥淧reviously, there was a manual communication interface, which inevitably led to information loss.鈥�

Running safe, efficient, compliant operations in remote and challenging environments

For utility companies, inspecting and maintaining natural gas pipelines in remote rural areas is crucial. These locations often suffer from unreliable internet connectivity, leading to potential data gaps.

ONTRAS has significantly improved its field operations by implementing offline capabilities. Technicians can now conduct inspections, record findings, and complete digital checklists directly on their mobile devices on-site, even without internet access. Once back in an area with connectivity, all data automatically syncs to the central system, updating records and informing supervisors of completed work.

鈥淲ith 麻豆原创 Field Service Management, there is the app that can be connected to all applications,” Kurmies added. “We achieved the broadest coverage of our use cases for the first time, with many already covered by the standard product.鈥�

As the company continues to grow, the German Association of Gas and Water Compartments regulations are a central component, implemented to guarantee the technical security of the installations and the security of supply.

With 麻豆原创 Field Service Management, the company can now operate offline remotely without internet coverage and maintain the patching and checklist functions. This is especially important for technicians in remote areas lacking internet connectivity. Technicians must adhere to strict safety protocols and document every step. Offline checklists and patching functions ensure that no steps are missed, even in remote locations.

鈥淭his was the big challenge that we are also becoming more and more digital,” Kurmies further explained. “You also want to provide digital protocol templates and we simply reached our limits.鈥�

Convista played a crucial role in guiding the company through the 麻豆原创 implementation process, acting as the interface between 麻豆原创 and the company while adjusting 麻豆原创 Field Service Management to meet ONTRAS鈥� specific needs.

Heiko Winkler, IT manager at ONTRAS, highlighted the reliability and commitment of Convista as an implementation partner: “Convista is an exceptionally reliable and committed partner. Even in the second phase of the project, which was initially considered high-risk, their expertise and dedication ensured a successful implementation.”

Winkler noted the significant creativity applied to advising on the implementation, especially considering the initial uncertainty about its feasibility.听Additionally, the company collaborated with for the technical implementation of the 麻豆原创 Field Service Management, connector for 麻豆原创 ERP, and made several adjustments to the setup and error messages. The entire implementation took approximately a year and a half.

The company currently uses 麻豆原创 ERP Central Component and is transitioning to , having already implemented 麻豆原创 Field Service Management. Winkler noted that they strategically rely on cloud products: 鈥淥ur philosophy is not cloud only, but cloud first.鈥�

ONTRAS aims to advance further with smart forms and continue to expand its 麻豆原创 S/4HANA implementation in the near future.

.

With more than 1,500 employees at 50Hertz alone, the company has a well-defined digitalization strategy in place that focuses on sustaining a clean core system. To meet this objective, it chose to utilize the no-code tool, 麻豆原创 Build Apps, which aids its transformation journey with 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP).

50Hertz鈥檚 citizen developers implemented a mobile application for the company鈥檚 specialized maintenance electricians that significantly reduced both the manual effort and the risk of errors. This mobile application supports them by maintaining and calculating the master data of power circuits, which are represented in the 麻豆原创 system as functional locations.

Why 50Hertz decided to use 麻豆原创 Build Apps

In 2023, 50Hertz conducted an analysis of its plant maintenance processes. In summary, it concluded that it was time-consuming to create new entries in its plant maintenance system and fill in master and operational data. A lot of manual effort was invested in maintaining data in Excel files and value calculations for technical objects were prone to errors. Due to the complexity of the process,听the responsibility for certain areas could only be shared between a few technicians.

After collaborating with the 麻豆原创 AppHaus team in Berlin, the company identified a use case for its future accounting solution and evaluated different scenarios. Ultimately, the innovative capabilities of 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform convinced the 50Hertz expert team because the platform would allow them to scale up a new solution once it’s successfully piloted and rolled out across the entire corporation.

What鈥檚 more, in 麻豆原创 Discovery Center, they discovered the “” mission, which provides guidance and support with a repeatable actionable use case to solve exactly that. The analysis showed that 麻豆原创 Build Apps could not only help enhance operational agility and speed responses to business requirements, it could also integrate seamlessly with existing 麻豆原创 S/4HANA architecture.

Martin Glatzel, enterprise architect at 麻豆原创 AppHaus Berlin, expressed his satisfaction with the collaboration with the 50Hertz team: 鈥淲ith only very limited support from our side, the 50Hertz citizen developers succeeded in using 麻豆原创 Build Apps to solve their defined use case. Their four new apps will have an immense impact on the efficiency of the important high-voltage grid maintenance work in the future.鈥�

What the maintenance apps improved

麻豆原创 Build Apps enabled the team of 50Hertz citizen developers to implement the new maintenance applications with very limited support from 麻豆原创. Today, they cover the following maintenance tasks:听

• The electric circuit display app shows circuit attributes.
• The circuit section display app allows users to look for a specific circuit and select it. All circuit sections of the selected circuit are shown, and users can view corresponding attributes and characteristics.
• The circuit section adjusting app allows users to search for a specific circuit and select it. All circuit sections of the selected circuit are displayed, and users can modify corresponding attributes.
• The circuit section design app allows users to select a circuit and create a circuit section by entering and saving necessary requirements and attributes.

After rolling out the new apps to the specialized electricians, they have benefited in different ways, such as:听

• About 15% shorter process duration for maintaining functional locations and a significant reduction in the use of both paper- and Excel-based process steps.
• 10% faster onboarding of new technicians because the app is very easy to use, leading to quick adoption by its end users, the specialized electricians.
• Intuitive search for technical locations based on historical data.
• Automatic calculation of business-critical numbers, thus improving accuracy significantly.

Looking back 

Looking back, the 50Hertz team appreciates the opportunity to develop complex apps with 麻豆原创 Build Apps in relatively short timeframes. Christian Salewsky and Desiree Possi, both working for the Maintenance Systems & Processes department at 50Hertz, shared about their experience: 鈥淲hile we still had to code at least to some extent in JavaScript and learn to keep track of all the different flows, the overall project experience was encouraging. The detailed product documentation allowed our team to grasp the basics quickly. Once we used the standard functionalities of 麻豆原创 Build Apps, calculating electronic data became very simple. We found clear explanations of all the functions, and the tabular presentation of data was very helpful, too.鈥�

Imke Vierjahn is communications lead at 麻豆原创 AppHaus.

As organizations strive to optimize energy usage, enhance customer experiences, and streamline operations, AI emerges as a pivotal technology. 麻豆原创 Business AI can revolutionize the utilities sector through reliable, relevant, and responsible solutions.听听

To learn more, read this article or this for an in-depth look at recent 麻豆原创 Business AI innovations. 

Strategic Impacts of AI on Utilities

麻豆原创 Business AI can impact several strategic priorities within the utilities industry: 

• Customer intimacy: Customers often face long wait times and generic responses, leading to frustration and decreased satisfaction. AI-enabled tools like guided conversations, intelligent Q&A, and response generation can significantly enhance customer service by providing personalized interactions based on a 360掳 customer view. This helps optimize service, improve the classification and processing of service requests, and boost cross-selling and upselling opportunities through intelligent product recommendations. 
• Marketing and sales simplification: Sales cycles are prolonged due to the manual processing of unstructured data, causing inefficiencies and delayed order creation. AI can analyze marketing data using natural language processing to create sales orders from unstructured data and automate back-office processes. This automation helps reduce manual effort, accelerate sales cycles, and ensure more accurate order processing. 
• Operational excellence: Unplanned equipment downtime and inefficient field service management lead to increased operational costs and reduced asset reliability. AI helps optimize asset management through predictive maintenance, dispatch planning, and field service management. By predicting equipment failures and planning maintenance activities proactively, AI can reduce downtime, enhance labor utilization, and lower operational costs, working to ensure smoother operations and higher asset reliability.听

How AI Will Transform Utilities

麻豆原创 Business AI offers a range of scenarios across various business functions: 

• Customer experience: AI capabilities in 麻豆原创 Emarsys Customer Engagement and the 麻豆原创 Service Cloud solution can enhance customer engagement through intelligent content recommendations, case categorization, and automated response generation. 
• Metering and markets: AI solutions for utilities, such as implausible meter reading validation and energy forecasting, can improve data accuracy and operational efficiency. Joint offerings with industry cloud partners help to further enhance these capabilities. 
• Bill-to-cash and finance: Intelligent collections, invoice matching, and automated processing of out-sorted billing documents can streamline financial operations, helping to improve cash flow and reducing manual intervention. 
• Service and asset management: AI-driven predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, and asset health monitoring can ensure optimal asset performance and reduced downtime. 

AI in Action 

AI holds vast potential across sectors, particularly in utilities. From innovations in grid management to optimizing distribution operations and energy management, AI is revolutionizing how utilities operate and secure their infrastructure. 

To tackle current industry challenges and evolving market conditions, many utility companies are exploring AI solutions. These solutions span production, supply chain management, and maintenance operations, offering significant improvements in operational performance and quality metrics. In today’s challenging environment, AI is increasingly seen as an essential tool for achieving efficiency and resilience. 

To illustrate the transformative potential of 麻豆原创 Business AI, various organizations worldwide have leveraged its capabilities to realize substantial advancements: 

• IWB utilizes machine learning to accurately predict solar power production in Basel, Switzerland, thereby enhancing the city’s energy planning and management. 
• Avangrid employs automated AI-driven solutions for overhead network inspections, which streamline maintenance processes and improve operational efficiency. 
• Energie S眉dbayern optimizes the incident creation process with 麻豆原创鈥檚 support assistant, enhancing the responsiveness and effectiveness of its customer service operations. 

These examples underscore the ability of 麻豆原创 Business AI to drive innovation and efficiency across different sectors, offering a blueprint for other organizations aiming to harness AI for similar improvements. 

On the Horizon  

As utility organizations continue to explore AI applications, the future holds immense potential. Future scenarios that customers envision may include: 

• Visual inspection and condition-based maintenance: for asset condition monitoring can transform maintenance strategies, reducing out-of-service times and improving efficiency. 
• Next-generation customer interaction: A conversational self-service agent for utilities could provide personalized customer experiences, proactive bill-shock prevention, and tailored tariff recommendations. 

Implementing Business AI: Moving Toward a Resilient Digital Future 

By integrating 麻豆原创 Business AI, companies can leverage 麻豆原创’s established industry data models, which have been refined through collaborations with thousands of customers over the years. This AI can be trained to understand and analyze your enterprise’s unique data structures, helping to ensure compliance with data protection, ethical standards, and privacy regulations. 

麻豆原创 Business AI is poised to transform the utilities industry by delivering real-world business results through relevant, reliable, and responsible AI solutions. By integrating AI into core business processes, utilities can achieve operational excellence, enhance customer experiences, and drive sustainable growth. Embracing 麻豆原创 Business AI can enable utilities to navigate the challenges of the future and unlock new opportunities for innovation and efficiency. 

Innovation in AI is always evolving. The sources below provide up-to-date guidance in determining how AI can be used in your organizations:

• 听
• Partner solutions for the utilities industry, powered with AI, on
• Explore  
• More information on the  

For more insights into 麻豆原创’s AI innovations and their application in the utilities sector, join us in Miami, Florida, September 9-11 at 麻豆原创 for Utilities, presented by ASUG. .

Matthew London is vice president of North America Central Renewable Energy & Utilities at 麻豆原创.

With one specific device assignment use case in mind and based on its existing relationship with 麻豆原创 AppHaus, Iren approached 麻豆原创 in early 2024. The company鈥檚 goal was to not only make the corresponding processes more efficient but also eliminate potential error sources; it had detected errors caused by reliance on e-mail communication or through error-prone manual data entry. What鈥檚 more, the company wished to have transparent process insights and get real-time updates on device status and availability.

Building on 麻豆原创 BTP

To work on this innovation step, Iren Group鈥檚 IT department asked for expertise support in testing and applying 麻豆原创 Build Apps. For a first kick-off meeting, the 麻豆原创 AppHaus team invited Burak Demir, product manager, 麻豆原创 Build Apps, to join the project. With the customer鈥檚 system landscape built on 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP), the joint project team took a first step to check the 麻豆原创 Discovery Center site for existing solutions. They encountered a helpful use case in the 鈥溾�� mission. The mission allowed them to build upon prior experiences, benefit from existing material, and get helpful guidance that was, to a certain extent, applicable to Iren鈥檚 system landscape.

The New Solution: 麻豆原创 Build Apps and 麻豆原创 Build Work Zone

The new solution consists of different components, such as 麻豆原创 Build Apps, 麻豆原创 S/4HANA, 麻豆原创 Build Work Zone, as well as the 麻豆原创 S/4HANA solution for waste and recycling, which provides a platform for managing device records and information.

鈥淢y role in this project was to be available for very specific questions,鈥� Demir says. 鈥淚ren鈥檚 citizen developers did a great job in using and applying the available material and resources! They used 麻豆原创 Build Apps very successfully to solve one defined use case, which is exactly what the product was made for. And even if the impact of this one web application may not be too impressive yet because of the number of users, the enablement and experience the customer team gained in creating it is invaluable. I am sure it will encourage the team to look for more innovation opportunities that can be addressed with the help of 麻豆原创 Build Apps.鈥�

Smooth Operations and Transparency in Device Management

With the new web application that was built with 麻豆原创 Build Apps and deployed to 麻豆原创 Build Work Zone, Iren gained real-time updates and visibility of device status. The seamless integration with OData library allowed for automatic device creation and updates, eliminating the need for manual data entry. The use of the new solution further improved the accuracy and reliability of device records. What鈥檚 more, it brought about significant time savings, enhanced transparency, and much-desired visibility into device status.

鈥淚n our IT department, this app has truly improved our device assignment processes by eliminating the manual process via e-mail and automatically importing data from an 麻豆原创 Build Apps web form into 麻豆原创,鈥� Sara Miola, IT specialist at Iren Group, says. 鈥淲e have achieved significant time savings and increased efficiency, as the time spent has been reduced from several days to few minutes. The implementation of 麻豆原创 has enabled us to overcome our challenges, resulting in streamlined processes and enhanced device management effectiveness.鈥�

But with so many new partner-developed apps moving through the industry cloud pipeline and to 麻豆原创 Store lately, I鈥檝e learned not to underestimate how compelling the opportunities are for partners to commercialize new use cases to extend 麻豆原创鈥檚 portfolio of solutions for utility customers, nor how open those customers are to moving business processes to the cloud.

The volume of utility-focused apps produced via industry cloud, and the speed at which they鈥檙e being commercialized, underscores several noteworthy trends for 麻豆原创 partners:

1. 罢丑别谤别鈥檚 vast white space within the utilities product road map for partners to turn their intellectual property and use cases into solutions that generate new revenue streams and customers.
2. That white space continues to create huge opportunities for 麻豆原创 partners to enhance and extend 麻豆原创 solutions in the utilities sector by developing their own solutions using 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP).
3. Partners are taking advantage of the plentiful resources 麻豆原创鈥檚 industry cloud offers to help support and expedite the commercialization process.

Let鈥檚 first talk about white space. Our product road map for utilities has plenty of it, along with a flexible framework to accommodate partner innovations that lead in exciting and sometimes unexpected new directions. That鈥檚 all by design. We鈥檝e realized that to give customers exactly what they need to thrive, it鈥檚 often better to let our partners use their expertise to augment the 麻豆原创 portfolio with solutions they develop themselves, with assistance from us where and when it鈥檚 needed.

That could include extensions and enhancements to 麻豆原创 Utilities Core, a solution that is . A glance at 麻豆原创鈥檚 industry cloud solutions for utilities shows development opportunities for partners in areas like enterprise asset management, digital supply chain, e-mobility, and a host of other areas. With industry cloud, we鈥檝e embraced the spirit of co-innovation, as evidenced by the close to 50 apps and solutions that are now part of the industry cloud for utilities portfolio, many of which were authored by 麻豆原创 partners. A from 麻豆原创 partner AppOrchid that enables people to query their data and get instant contextual answers is one of many examples from the partner-powered wave of innovation on the utilities side of industry cloud.

We鈥檙e actively encouraging partners to get involved in the co-innovation effort because with the new partner-friendly revenue models we鈥檝e incorporated into industry cloud, there鈥檚 a strong business case for them to do so.

Further strengthening that business case are all the resources 麻豆原创 is dedicating to support partners in the effort to identify and monetize their use cases for the utilities market. We鈥檙e making it easy for them to access resources and guidance at any point in their industry cloud journey, from onboarding through commercialization, closing deals and completing customer implementations.

To help speed the commercialization process for partners, we鈥檝e developed programs like , where we invite partners to submit use cases, then support chosen use cases with resources and guidance so they can quickly bring them to 麻豆原创 Store. We鈥檙e currently in the midst of our third utilities-focused round of SPRINT1, the previous two having yielded a variety of new apps from companies like AppOrchid, Utegration, EnergyOS, Infosys, and others.

After interviews, our panel chooses use cases based on their commercial merit. Those chosen partners then participate in a week-long bootcamp run by 麻豆原创 Co-Innovation Lab, where partners can receive technical advice and individual support. Next comes the 鈥渟print鈥� to the finish line, with regular check-ins, progress reviews, and additional support from 麻豆原创. The final step is onboarding to 麻豆原创 Store, again with expert guidance from 麻豆原创.

Not only do we plan to offer additional rounds of SPRINT1 for utility solutions, we鈥檝e also developed an , where individuals in the field and 麻豆原创 customers can learn more about specific partner-developed solutions and industry cloud opportunities within the utilities segment 鈥� in under 30 minutes.

As evidenced by resources like these, we鈥檙e highly focused on giving partners what they need to make their engagement with industry cloud worthwhile. To learn more about utilities-specific development opportunities and how to access the aforementioned partner resources, please contact me or .

Christopher Pfendner is PES global ecosystem lead for Utilities and Energy at 麻豆原创.

Interconnection is the first aspect of the intelligent 麻豆原创 Customer Experience (麻豆原创 CX) portfolio, bringing operational and contextual data to the individual engagement.

In a changing world, both customers and utilities are forced to adapt:

• The customer has unprecedented access to smart devices
• Energy and water providers are asking consumers for usage flexibility and conservation
• Programs are available and mandated to support home and business owners with decarbonization investments
• The utility is deeply involved in distributed electric generation, energy storage, and decarbonization

Staying connected constantly with customers is a critical factor for succeeding in the energy transition.

Globally, utilities have been driven to expand and shift, and there is no end in sight. While energy and water suppliers must embrace sustainability goals, the industry is developing new business models. Utilities are becoming retailers for commodity and non-commodity offerings. To their consumers, the utility is a trusted partner and welcome advisor when investing in home energy and storage or electric transportation, or simply subscribing to bundled home service offerings for energy, water, telecommunication, transportation, and other services.

This means that a utility company faces what seems to be contradicting goals: optimizing classic customer operations for stable and reliable energy and water supply, while at the same time innovating the customer experience with speed.

To meet these two important goals — optimize and innovate — companies are specifically demanding better customer solutions.

On the one hand, customer service must maintain, if not improve, customer satisfaction while lowering cost-to-serve. Automation of manual tasks, digital channels, and process excellence are key. On the other hand, innovating customer experience can be tricky for a utility. Traditionally, especially in regulated markets, the energy and water supplier did not need to focus on nurturing customer relations and growing a market share. Time-to-market, digital storefronts, and third-party collaboration can be challenging for the classic utilities culture. Consumer technology has grown rapidly. People now come with smart devices and expectations, and are used to seamless shopping experiences.

To be competitive, utilities must learn and adopt best practices from other industries, including retail, electronics, and automotive. Introducing new products and services requires a state-of-the-art marketing and sales execution setup.

Customers expect individual — and respectful — communications and offerings. Insight is the next aspect in the 麻豆原创 Customer Experience portfolio, with timely, meaningful, and predictive data to anticipate, support, and optimize customer interactions. A best-of-suite business solution with end-to-end process for lead to cash and service request to resolve enables both, optimizing the back office and innovating the front office.

“Our utilities customers have the goal to build customer intimacy and involve their respective end customers in the energy transition journey, including them becoming energy generators and contributors to the grid as well,” says Daniela Sellmann, global vice president and head of the at 麻豆原创. “This can only be achieved if the front and back office come together to get a 360-degree view of the end customers. That is why we strategically invest in our customer experience solution for utilities.”

麻豆原创 is unmatched in combining enterprise resource planning (ERP) with CX solutions in the industry context. CX includes several applications, connecting service, sales, marketing, e-commerce, and customer data on a solid and flexible platform. 麻豆原创鈥檚 continued focus on delivering and innovating industry-tailored CX solutions is visible both in the current product portfolio and road maps.

With the , launched in 2022, utilities customer service teams in the office, on the road, and at home can easily connect to their customers. A redesigned agent desktop runs at greater speed, scalability, and availability. The extends 麻豆原创 Service Cloud with native integration to meter to cash in the 麻豆原创 for Utilities portfolio, the core of energy and water back-office processes.

麻豆原创 Sales Cloud equips sales teams with the right tools in today鈥檚 complex selling environment. When used in combination, 麻豆原创 Service Cloud and 麻豆原创 Sales Cloud can .

Innovative products require an online presence, which is where 麻豆原创 Commerce Cloud, subscription management add-on, delivers a store front and e-commerce platform suited and ready for any utility offering.

麻豆原创 Emarsys Customer Engagement is the new marketing solution to personalize interactions and 麻豆原创 has an exciting road map for utilities-specific analytics and tactics, with pre-built content for listening to signals during customer journeys and context-sensitive responses.

The partner ecosystem plays a critical role delivering 麻豆原创 Customer Experience solutions, not only with implementation services but also enhancing 麻豆原创 offering with apps; for example, through 麻豆原创 store.

“We now have more than 14 apps built for 麻豆原创 for Utilities and CX, covering multiple scenarios for customer data, service, sales, marketing, deregulation, or CPQ and product management to meet specific needs,”says Edgar Kauter, managing director at Power Reply Germany. “As an industry cloud partner, we see 麻豆原创’s investment in CX and the industries and we value the innovation. Utilities can easily see how the standard 麻豆原创 portfolio, together with our standardized apps and implementation services, provides not only a quicker time to value, but also cost-efficient processes.”

A seamless customer experience requires a seamless organization and a seamless solution. Any integrated front office and back office requires adaptive measures, the third aspect of听 intelligent CX from 麻豆原创. Adaption means that feature-rich 麻豆原创 applications can be personalized, extended, integrated, and composed with other apps; for example, industry cloud partners.

麻豆原创 is on a mission to help make utilities businesses more customer-centric. Discover , and explore road maps to discover how 麻豆原创 plans to improve the integration design of sales orders for utilities commodity contracts in 麻豆原创 S/4HANA听.

Robert Straubinger is chief solution expert for Solution Management Utilities at 麻豆原创.

In his State of the Union address earlier this month, U.S. President Joe Biden both supported and chastised the oil and gas industry. On one hand, he said the U.S. would rely on these energy sources for at least the next 10 years. On the other hand, he criticized the industry for reporting 鈥渞ecord profits,鈥� he said.

鈥淟ast year, they made $200 billion in the midst of a global energy crisis.听 I think it鈥檚 outrageous.鈥� He also said that 鈥淏ig Oil鈥� should be investing more, to increase production and bring down prices.

麻豆原创鈥檚 Take

Biden was walking a fine line trying to balance the industry鈥檚 contribution to climate change, as well as its record profits last year, with the nation鈥檚 dependence on hydrocarbon fuels, not just to heat home and power automobiles, said Benjamin Beberness, 麻豆原创 vice president and global head of the Oil & Gas Industry Business Unit.

Oil is used for a myriad of products, from medicine to the bodies of electric cars. Additionally, Biden underscored the reality that although U.S. policy is supporting the growth of alternative energy such as wind and solar, they remain a sliver — albeit a growing part — of the energy supply.

鈥淚 think the U.S. government is saying: 鈥榃e can’t let them off the hook from cleaning up what they’re doing today, but we still need them to be around because they still are going to be producing oil for us to use to make these other products, as well as to continue to provide fuel for our cars, etcetera,鈥欌�� Beberness said.

Addressing the criticism about profits and high energy costs due to supply, Beberness blamed the vagaries of federal policy toward drilling and limiting new exploration. Market forces already have brought down the price of oil. Brent Crude, one of the two main benchmark prices for purchases of oil globally, reached a peak of $123.92 per barrel and now stands about $83 per barrel.

鈥淭here has to be some commitment from the U.S. government that we can maintain, because what [oil companies] don鈥檛 want to do is to make this huge investment in the additional production and other things and then have the US government say: 鈥榃e’re going to put all these regulations in place.鈥欌��

Using technology, oil and gas companies can reduce their negative impact on the environment, Beberness said. Although natural gas is by far the cleanest of the big three — coal and oil being the other two — they all can become cleaner though asset management.

Citing a McKinsey study, Beberness said a that a 10% improvement in asset operations of a normal gas company will result in a four percent reduction in CO2 emissions.

Contact:
Ilaina Jonas, Senior Director of Global Public Relations, 麻豆原创
+1 (646) 923-2834, ilaina.jonas@sap.com

The need for decarbonization has been the driving force behind policies , while the Russian invasion led to additional policies to phase out EU dependency on Russian fossil fuels.

The common solution to both crises would be to stop using fossil fuels and shift to renewable energy sources. It is therefore no surprise that renewable energies are the fastest growing source of energy, contributing half of the growth in global supplies and becoming the largest source of power by 2040.* In most regions, wind and solar are also the cheapest source of electricity generation, even without subsidies.**

麻豆原创ure to shift to renewables has been high for decades; the current crisis around exploding and volatile energy prices demands action in even shorter time frames.

In France, utility companies are allowed to reduce energy taxes in order to limit the increase of energy prices to a maximum of four percent. In Germany,听 the price cap for gas and energy — 鈥淕as- und Strompreisbremse鈥� — has been introduced to motivate citizens toward safe energy and to shield energy billing amount for gas, electricity, and district heating for 80% of their consumption the previous year.

鈥溌槎乖� works hand in hand with the German-speaking 麻豆原创 User Group and other associations to make sure newly passed legislation gets integrated into our systems so that our customers can fulfill obligations toward their end customers鈥� explains Daniela Sellmann, global vice president and head of the Utilities Industry Business Unit at 麻豆原创 SE.

This shift to renewables also requires a growing number of decentralized energy resources (DER). Renewables like solar, wind, or bioenergy are largely generated by small local generation assets, which feed directly into the distribution grid. The intermittent nature of solar and wind causes challenges for the balancing of demand and supply in the power grids.

The demand side is also changing, with industrial, commercial, and household customers increasingly generating their own energy and becoming energy “flexumers” — generators, flexibility providers, and consumers of energy.

鈥淭his causes a shift in utilities鈥� business models, from pure selling of energy and water to becoming a full-service provider for energy flexumers,鈥� says Sellmann.

Digital transformation is both an answer to the challenges of the energy transition and driver of new business models and services. This has been recognized in the EU with the creation of the Digitalization of Energy Action Plan. The action plan defines measures on how modern technologies can help improve the efficient use of energy resources, ease the integration of renewables into the grid, and save costs for EU consumers and energy companies.

As nearly everything becomes 鈥渟mart,鈥� utilities need a strategy on how to manage the avalanche of data coming from devices and other sources and use it to feed their intelligence. At 麻豆原创, we call this the intelligent enterprise, which is enabled by integration of data and processes and innovation with industry best practices. A cornerstone for this is the 麻豆原创 Utilities Core solution.

鈥淲ith 麻豆原创 Utilities Core, we provide utilities with a proven platform to reliably run their core business processes like meter-to-cash in the cloud,” says Sellmann. “We are using intelligent technologies like machine learning to further automate core processes and increase efficiency. At the same time, we enable customers to drive innovation and increase speed and agility by leveraging 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform and the industry cloud with solutions like 麻豆原创 Cloud for Energy for managing times series data from meters. Further, we leverage our partner ecosystem to fill white spaces and gaps as well as to scale spread and adoption.:

Utilities-specific innovation topics at 麻豆原创 cover the entire utilities value chain:

We are undoubtedly moving toward a cleaner and more independent energy future. One problem that remains: time.

For a more detailed view on the energy transition and the solutions 麻豆原创 provides for it, see “.鈥� Learn more about how 麻豆原创 can help your company make the transition to net-zero carbon energy robust, seamless, and inclusive.

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Markus Bechmann is vice president of the Utilities industry business unit and program lead for 麻豆原创 Utilities Core at 麻豆原创.

*BP, BP Energy Outlook (2019), 7
** Michael O’boyle, Wind and Solar Are Our Cheapest Electricity Generation Sources. Now What Do We Do?, GREENTECH MEDIA, Jan. 26, 2017.

Utility-scale solar power generation in the U.S. is surging. This year, almost half the 46.1 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity added to the grid will be solar, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and solar has contributed more than 30% of all new capacity in five of the last six years.

麻豆原创鈥檚 Take

鈥淒omestically as well as globally, there is a strong mandate to move to a net-zero greenhouse gas economy,鈥� said Stefan Wolf, vice president and a solar expert in 麻豆原创鈥檚 .

鈥淭he power generation industry today is one of the key producers of greenhouse gas and 鈥� because we are talking mostly about industrial size units 鈥� it is easier to change than transportation, for example, which has a tremendous number of small units, the cars we are all driving,鈥� Wolf explained. 鈥淪olar is one of the proven renewable energy sources and it has location-based advantages over wind and hydro power.鈥�

Photovoltaic (PV) power generation has the benefit of using hardly any moving parts other than the tracker, which keeps the solar panels positioned at an optimal angle to the sun. In addition, Wolf said that solar panels today are much more efficient than 10 years ago, enabling them to be very cost effective, even in less sunny regions. Wolf pointed out that utility-scale solar and residential or commercial rooftop solar are not an 鈥渆ither/or鈥�; in fact, they can complement each other and complement other forms of power generation well too.

One downside to utility-scale solar is the need for a rather sizable area for the panels. This space is often only available far away from densely populated areas and commercial users, which means that like other forms of power generation, the electricity must be transported to where it is needed.

The biggest problem for any utility-scale energy generation is the need for large infrastructure investments to build the necessary transmission capacity. Power plants are typically owned by private investors and require planning permits and other approvals, which can take years to secure, while transmission lines are usually owned by a regulated, controlled utility. Authorizing those investments and getting agreement for the recovery of these investments through the energy rates is a much more complicated processes, unless there are government mandates and support.

Putting solar panels on rooftops and other urban and suburban surfaces is therefore still a good approach because producing power where it is needed avoids the cost of transporting it, while also supporting local resilience and independence. Having solar panels on the roofs of homes, businesses, schools and parking lots allows those owners to participate commercially in the energy network and reduce their overall energy costs.

But solar isn鈥檛 the only alternative energy source worth pursuing, according to Wolf: 鈥淧V-based energy generation will not solve our energy problems single-handedly. Wind and hydro are equally relevant. And there are other non carbon-based energy sources we have not started to tap into.鈥�

For example, 鈥淚f we look further into the future there is tidal energy. Compared to听solar听and wind, the tides can be forecast precisely so it could be a very dependable source of energy.鈥� Wolf noted however, that a tremendous amount of research is still needed to understand the impact that tidal energy farms have on marine life, as well as their impact on other commercial uses of oceans.

Then there are nuclear options like fusion and small-scale fission. But those have their own challenges to be worked out.

Wolf said ultimately, 鈥淲hen it comes to empowerment of the consumer and bringing energy generation to the place of consumption, solar听is hard to beat.鈥�

Contact:
Ilaina Jonas, Senior Director of Global Public Relations, 麻豆原创
+1 (646) 923-2834, ilaina.jonas@sap.com

鈥淭here is no life on earth without the sun, and it鈥檚 there for everyone,鈥� said Anselma W枚rner, COO and one of the three cofounders of Exnaton, a Swiss company that develops software for communities trading renewable energy in local neighborhoods.

W枚rner was explaining how her company created a smart energy system at the recent听听in Munich, Germany. 鈥淲e have a new generation of prosumers 鈥� people who consume and produce their own energy 鈥� who are using new connected technologies and renewable power like solar to exchange energy through the grid.鈥�

Sun Powered

Humans have always depended on the sun for light, heat, and food, and its all-encompassing power has influenced cultures and religions around the world. Although advances in technology have decreased our dependence, the importance of solar energy in our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint is a reminder that we still depend on it for survival. That鈥檚 why the cofounders picked the name 听for their enterprise. Looking for a word that connects 鈥渆nergy鈥� and 鈥渆xchange,鈥� they hit upon the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten (pronounced Echnaton) who raised the status of the sun above that of all other gods and created an early monotheism that briefly became a state religion.

The goal of Exnaton is to help integrate prosumers into the grid. Currently, the legal framework is very complex, and there is no clear ROI for them. There are no feed-in tariffs or policy mechanisms designed to accelerate investment in renewable energy technologies by offering long-term contracts to renewable energy producers.

鈥淎t the moment, there is no value for the community, and we want to change that,鈥� said W枚rner, who is responsible for fundraising, data science, and recruiting at Exnaton. 鈥淲hat most people don鈥檛 realize is that renewable energy is not always produced when it鈥檚 needed most. So, when it is available, prosumers should be able to sell their energy directly.鈥�

People who own solar panels could actually sell a lot of energy to other households, if only they had the means. W枚rner and her team believe it should be as easy to sell to other consumers as it is to sell any other products on the market. 鈥淧rosumers are faced with fragmented solutions, complex regulations, and frustrating user experiences. What they need are simple solutions, trusted local providers, and proactive community and user groups,鈥� she explained.

Community Centric

Enter Exnaton鈥檚 EnergyCommunity software add-on for听 solutions, which won an听听in the Partner Paragon category together with Best Practice Consulting (BPC) and is now available on 麻豆原创 Store. This user-centric extension enables utility companies to empower prosumers to buy and sell energy within their local communities and also track all relevant data.

Here鈥檚 how it works. Any prosumers in the community can sell their solar energy to any consumers in the grid. The EnergyCommunity tracks their energy data and informs them exactly where the energy is coming from and how much CO2 it is generating. The utility company can easily bill these energy exchanges with their regular 麻豆原创 billing system thanks to the integration offered by Exnaton in working with the 麻豆原创 system integrator BPC. At the same time, the utility company can sell additional hardware installations to members of the community, making it an attractive option for all parties.

鈥淭he EnergyCommunity makes it easy to exchange energy within the community. Participating in their local community creates a closer bond between people, and the platform provides a new customer channel for the utility company,鈥� said听the technology expert, who has a PhD in Information Systems. 鈥淎t the end of the day, with Exnaton鈥檚 energy sharing software-as-a-service platform, energy suppliers can offer their customers more independence.鈥�

Exnaton is responding to the challenge faced by prosumers who currently have no possibility to sell their extra energy directly on the market and the one faced by utilities companies as they realize they must offer new models as they transition to renewables with a decentralized approach. A number of utility companies are already running the solution in communities across Germany, Austria, Luxemburg, and Switzerland, and the goal is to expand to other European countries where there is a strong regulatory framework. More importantly, the solution enables energy companies to equip their customers for a sustainable future.

Future Focused

Over 733 million people on the planet still don鈥檛 have access to affordable, sustainable energy, which is why providing energy is goal seven on the list of the听. For Exnaton, goal seven is its core business, but at the same time, it is equally committed to goal 11, developing sustainable cities and communities; goal 12, enabling responsible production and consumption; and goal 13, taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impact.

The good news, according to the recent听听report, is that renewables overtook fossil fuels as the number one power source in the European Union for the first time in 2020. Renewables generate 38% of electricity, compared to 37% for fossil fuels. Also, at least two million people in the EU are already involved in more than 7,700 energy communities, and engagement is rising. Energy communities have also contributed up to 7% of nationally installed capacities of renewables, estimated at 6.3 GW.

For W枚rner and the team at Exnaton, producing energy where it is consumed decreases the dependence of the region on imported resources. Energy from the sun is practically limitless, and it more than covers the entire demand of the planet. With advances in technology and solutions like the EnergyCommunity, households and small businesses benefit from electricity powered by the sun, making renewable energy accessible and cost effective. What could be more natural, sensible, or sustainable?

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U.S. president Joe Biden approved a major disaster declaration for hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico amid renewed warnings from scientists that the warming planet is making storms wetter and more intense. 鈥淭he worst storms will get worse,鈥� Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told NBC news.

Hurricane Fiona was one of three powerful storms last weekend, along with Typhoon Nanmando, which hit Japan, and the remnants of Typhoon Merbok, which wreaked havoc in Alaska. Climate change is fueling extreme weather events across the planet, including record-breaking heatwaves, droughts and floods in the U.S. and elsewhere.

麻豆原创鈥檚 Take

From California to Florida, people are directly experiencing the impact of global warming and are demanding action. In addition to reducing CO2 emissions and accelerating decarbonization, they are asking what can be done to minimize the impact of water shortages in some areas and flash flooding in others.

Too much water or not enough: climate change, aquifer depletion and population growth are increasing water scarcity worldwide. In the U.S., almost half of the watersheds may soon lack sufficient water supplies to meet monthly demand — one factor that is prompting the Biden administration to declare that global water security is now a matter of national security.

In most countries, including the U.S., water utilities are the stewards of local water resources — whether the sources are reservoirs, rivers or springs and underground aquifers. About 39 billion gallons of water a day are withdrawn from surface water or groundwater sources for public supply, representing about 12% of total freshwater withdrawals.

In the U.S., this drinking water is delivered through 2.2 million miles of underground pipes owned and operated by community water utilities, big and small. Unfortunately, much of the system is aging and underfunded.

鈥淲e believe that the water utilities can have a major impact on what is happening right now,鈥� says Daniela Sellmann, global vice president and head of at 麻豆原创 and an expert on water management.

Although Sellmann acknowledges that the water utilities will never achieve everything alone and need the support of the government, she believes there are actions they can take to manage water supplies, reduce losses through leakage, and cut energy consumption. 鈥淥ne of the main pieces that we see for the water utilities is basically to improve water catchment and then educate society about how to use that water. This is really low level, but it’s something that they can do,鈥� she says.

According to the Unite States Geological Survey (USGS), the lower 48 states receive enough precipitation during an average year to cover the states to a depth of about 30 inches. Unfortunately, only a small proportion of that rainfall — and an even smaller portion of the cloud bursts that lead to flash flooding — finds its way into public water supplies.

Even when rainfall is successfully captured and processed, Sellmann notes that water utilities often suffer huge water losses because of leaks in their aged water distribution networks. In the U.S., the most conservative estimates put the percentage of treated water lost because of leakages at around 17%.

The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that 6 billion gallons of treated water is lost each day in the U.S., enough to fill over 9,000 swimming pools. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that distribution system leaks represent a cost $2.6 billion a year. Much of this wasted, treated water is lost through the 240,000 water main breaks that take place annually across the country.

Finding those leaks is one area where technology 鈥� including connected pressure and flow sensors, smart meters and software such as real-time analytics and predictive maintenance apps 鈥� can reduce leakage.

Tracing and repairing these leaks is likely the most cost-effective way to improve water security and combat the effects of increasingly frequent prolonged droughts like those in the American West this year. Although leak repair and pressure management are two well-known ways to reduce distributional losses, and have proved highly effective in some geographies outside the U.S., their potential as part of a water-saving strategy has been largely underutilized.

Experts suggest this may be because water losses in distribution systems in the U.S. are not systematically tracked or regulated. Only seven states currently require standardized water loss audits, and no state regulates the level of water losses. However, the regulatory environment governing water losses is rapidly evolving and several states are now considering tighter regulations.

Reducing the loss of treated water from the distribution system would also help utilities reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprints. 鈥淟osing the water from the network leads to less pressure, which means using more energy for the pumps that are pumping the water, and it also it has a really negative effect on the water quality within the pipes,鈥� Sellmann says.

Leaky infrastructure also means utilities have to treat and process more water, which, in the case of some energy-intensive processes like desalination, pushes up costs and energy usage. So, as Sellman points out, helping utilities use smart technologies to become more efficient becomes a virtuous circle where everyone wins.

Contact:
Ilaina Jonas, Senior Director of Global Public Relations, 麻豆原创
+1 (646) 923-2834, ilaina.jonas@sap.com

鈥淭he well-being of our service technicians is very close to our hearts,鈥� says Claus J眉rgen Bader, product manager at Netze BW. 鈥淲e want all our people to return home safely at the end of their work assignments.鈥� With this in mind, Netze BW approached 麻豆原创 in the second half of 2021 to work on a solution that supports its service technicians in the field. The network group belongs to the large German utilities鈥� provider EnBW and is responsible for more than two million customers in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

How Service Technicians Benefit from the 鈥淣eWa鈥� App

Together with 麻豆原创, Netze BW started developing an Apple Watch app called 鈥淣eWa鈥� (Netze Watch). This way, Netze BW鈥檚 service technicians can always be up-to-date on their assigned work orders and can directly submit data from the app to 麻豆原创 systems.

In fact, thanks to the app they will be able to:

• Reduce accidents and the time to be at the scene of an accident with the help of the dead man switch function.
• Perform their jobs on-site with increased security with the help of the time slot alarm function.

Netze BW鈥檚 Challenge

Netze BW service technicians are responsible for maintaining public power, gas, and water supply infrastructure. For compliant reporting, their tasks and statuses must be updated in frequent intervals. All information they might require during their work in the field needs to be available so that they can submit details, such as damaged components, that are automatically identified and assigned. As the service technicians have shifts of up to 24/7 job availability, their jobs come with a lot of risk. What鈥檚 more, they often work at remote locations, many times under hazardous conditions and alone.

Conceptual Design from 麻豆原创 within One Week

Netze BW and 麻豆原创 outlined a solution with 麻豆原创 AppHaus in a very short time. 麻豆原创 sent off the high-fidelity screens to development in just four business days by applying the so-called 鈥渟peedboat鈥� method based on . This approach focuses on understanding the users鈥� needs within their daily routine at work first, before technologies are evaluated to fulfill those needs.

Next to increasing the well-being and security of its technicians, Netze BW also asked 麻豆原创 to show a solution that can ensure efficient bidirectional data exchange from Apple Watch to 麻豆原创 and back 鈥� that is, between service technicians and central departments.

Working closely with Netze BW, the 麻豆原创 AppHaus team conducted on-site research shadowing service technicians at work and created initial design wireframes that were immediately verified with the Netze BW service technicians. The final high-fidelity screens were then delivered remotely a week later.

Based on those high-fidelity screens, the Netze Watch (鈥淣eWa鈥�) Apple Watch app has been developed by Netze BW and EnBW in-house developers based on metering processes for utilities solutions from 麻豆原创 and 麻豆原创 EAM Work Order on Apple Watch.

鈥淲ith the help from Apple and 麻豆原创 we now improve and, in some cases, save the lives of Netze BW鈥檚 service technicians,鈥� says Mark Zimmermann, head CoE Mobile Solutions at EnBW. 鈥淎 big thank you to the design thinking method applied by 麻豆原创 AppHaus. We had an extraordinary journey and learned a lot.鈥�

The NeWa Apple Watch App

The NeWa app will soon be seamlessly connected to Netze BW鈥檚 existing workforce management iOS app on smartphones. It acts as a kind of digital companion that provides technicians with all details related to their current job or order and tracks a technician鈥檚 heart rate or detects if there has been a crash or signs of an accident. If the technician does not respond via the watch, then an emergency protocol is automatically triggered.

The NeWa app is running on iPhone and Apple Watch systems. This app and the Netze Mobile Workforce Management, or 鈥淣eMo鈥� app, run on iPhone and enable data exchange with 麻豆原创 applications like 麻豆原创 S/4HANA via 麻豆原创 Gateway.

The NeWa Apple Watch app offers additional safety features. Based on predefined triggers the safety control tower is automatically alarmed. Information from the Apple Watch is combined with task data from NeMo and sent to 麻豆原创 backend systems with no extra effort.

The currently planned NeWa and NeMo app architecture looks like this:

In the future, Netze BW鈥檚 IT team plans to replace the existing on-premise architecture 鈥� 麻豆原创 Gateway and 麻豆原创 Mobile Platform 鈥� with 麻豆原创 Business Technology Platform (麻豆原创 BTP) and the corresponding software development kit (SDK) for iOS, as well as 麻豆原创 Integration Suite and 麻豆原创 Extension Suite to connect with 麻豆原创 S/4HANA for a best-in-class system architecture.

The following functionalities of the NeWa app support the Netze BW service technicians in:

• Setting a job timer (dead man switch) on the Apple Watch: in case the timer is not canceled or extended, the safety control tower is notified and will take adequate measures, such as informing emergency services. Information from the Apple Watch, like location and duration, is cross-checked with job information available from 麻豆原创 databases.

  

• Benefiting from the fall detection functionality: in case the service technician slips or collapses, the Apple Watch will automatically inform emergency services. The NeWa app recognizes this situation and informs the safety control tower about the situation at the accident site.

Netze BW Won a 2022 麻豆原创 Innovation Award

Due to the fast turnaround time of the Apple Watch app, 听category.

Simon Hartmann, software architect for Mobile Development at EnBW, says: “We at Netze BW and EnBW were delighted to receive an 麻豆原创 Innovation Award. It encourages us to continue driving forward for not only productivity, but also the safety of our service technicians. Our special thanks to not only our internal colleagues, but also to Apple and 麻豆原创 for the initial trigger and to 麻豆原创 AppHaus for the support we received in the project itself. It helped us incorporate the UI and UX components together with the service technicians right from the start.”

A Day in the Life of a Service Technician

Before the NeWa and NeMo apps:

• Dispatching service technicians and data exchange including documentation was mainly based on e-mails and paperwork. In addition, bad data quality occurred due to media discontinuity between digital and analog processes.
• There were no standard solutions available for reducing the risk of working alone. Individual arrangements existed at a team level as well as stand-alone technical solutions like activating additional devices as interim solutions.
• Long waiting and response times were common due to no consistent digital solution being available.
• Previous implementations did not meet the requirements regarding user-centricity

  

After the apps:

• Service technicians have access to 麻豆原创 databases via their mobile devices, iPhone, and Apple Watch, and can submit task data and status information immediately.
• Service technicians are automatically informed about new jobs that have been assigned to them.
• Health and safety applications on the Apple Watch are linked to specific job information from 麻豆原创 systems and enable a 24/7 safety control tower that may initiate further action.
• Thanks to its open architecture, the NeWa app can also communicate with other apps on the employee’s iPhone and thus can be operated by other 麻豆原创 systems, such as within the wind offshore environment.

What鈥檚 Next?

Netze BW is working closely with its internal colleagues from the EnBW development department to release the NeWa app with the planned implementations. A publication for companies in the DACH region is also planned. Clearly, the effects and results of the NeWa app have encouraged the company to continue on its innovation path. There are plenty of new use cases in discussion around new technologies like machine learning, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality. For example, in 2021, EnBW developed the REVisAR app running on Apple iPad. It focuses on renewable energy visualization with the help of augmented reality (AR) functionalities for building wind turbines out in the field.

Constanze Reichelt is Project Expert Communications at 麻豆原创.

analysts predicted 80% of worldwide energy suppliers will use digital customer engagement solutions by 2026 to cater to the appetites of millennials and Gen Z, which will make up the majority of the utility industry鈥檚 customer base. A survey of Asia-Pacific city planners found they planned to prioritize initiatives that would manage critical resources like water using smart meters.

Similar to societal norms around sustainability, smart cities as a concept has evolved and expanded. According to James McClelland, senior global director of Industry Marketing for Utilities at 麻豆原创, organizations serving every community 鈥� from rural to urban and everything in between 鈥� care about efficiency, sustainability, and the circular economy.

鈥淲hether it鈥檚 water, gas, electricity, or other natural and energy resources, utilities want to become more efficient and reduce waste and lower carbon emissions for a more sustainable environment,鈥� said McClelland. 鈥淭he real power of a smart city comes down to data analytics from innovations like smart meters. With a better understanding of individual usage, utility providers can help customers make sustainable choices based on their household needs, collectively making the world a better place.鈥�

Case in point is American Water, which provides regulated and regulated-like drinking water and wastewater services to an estimated 14 million people in 24 states. Neeru Sharma, the company鈥檚 senior director of Business Partnership and Delivery, said the company distills every major decision into two questions: How will it make our company more efficient? And how will it positively change the customer experience?

I talked with Sharma at the event, where she told me about her company鈥檚 digitalization plans that included a network of smart meters based on the Internet of Things (IoT).

鈥淲e are a purpose-driven, customer-focused business,鈥� said Sharma. 鈥淥ur company vision revolves around efficient operations to deliver a superior customer experience and contribute to a sustainable society with better water consumption management. Going to a cloud-based platform is our first step in becoming an intelligent enterprise.鈥�

Operational Efficiencies from IoT-Based Sensors

American Water is at the vanguard of the utility industry鈥檚 digitalization trend that is fueled by consumer demographics and sustainability mandates.

Sharma equated technology innovation with her company鈥檚 business agility and resilience. Headquartered in New Jersey, American Water is the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. publicly traded water and wastewater utility company.

American Water recently selected to collect real and near real-time data from meters, as well as 听to connect information to billing and other systems. Unlike yesteryear鈥檚 monthly meter readings that relied on resource-intensive truck rolls, sensor-based smart meters automatically capture water usage data more frequently, giving American Water a clearer understanding of actual water consumption levels for billing and planning purposes. Access to real-time and on-demand data will also flag potential problems, helping the company keep meters in peak working condition.

鈥淲e won鈥檛 have to wait until the end of the month for usage data,鈥� said Sharma. 鈥淲e can identify and manage meter read issues, consumption patterns, and potential leak patterns at scale in buildings, and connect it directly to our billing systems. As a water utility, it鈥檚 very important for us to use our own resources to efficiently and better manage water distribution across our communities.鈥�

Analytics Behind Sustainable Business

Of course, sustainable water management does not mean reducing customer access to water. In this case, it translates to analyzing and acting on data from smart meters. For example, an unnatural spike in water consumption beyond typical usage rates could indicate a potential leak or a malfunctioning meter.

鈥淵ou need solutions that will provide up-to-the-minute information, surfacing water consumption trends on a daily basis,鈥� said Sharma. 鈥淎nalyzing that data, we can see if a customer鈥檚 consumption is consistent with or outside of historical norms. Having this on-demand data available can help us conduct proactive maintenance to prevent disruptions.鈥�

Sharma credited technology innovations like smart meters with helping the company meet sustainability objectives and build trusted relationships with customers.

鈥淚t takes a lot of steps to deliver clean water from the source to the customer鈥檚 faucet,鈥� she said. 鈥淭echnology is integral to providing that visibility into our entire process of bringing quality water in compliance with regulations to our customers. We want our customers to be fully aware of their water usage and what they can do for a more sustainable community. Data transparency is just as important to tracking our performance against ESG objectives.鈥�

Smart Communities are the Future

Smart meters are a harbinger of what鈥檚 to come as utilities grapple with managing water, arguably the most finite valuable natural resource on the planet. Leading utility providers are gearing up for major transformation.

analysts predicted that by next year, stricter environmental regulations will have pushed 30% of water utilities to invest in integrated information technology (IT) 听and operational technology (OT) data. Forrester analysts said that by 2024, 40% of energy suppliers will have lifted the core business logic from billing to customer data and experience management, becoming three times more effective at marketing new products.

Between climate change risks and consumer and community demands, water utilities need technology more than ever to boost efficiencies that improve the customer experience, representing the dawn of the next generation of sustainable smart communities.

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