AI works when the foundation is right 

The energy and utilities sector is investing heavily in AI. Business��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—but it marks only the beginning. �ճ����real challenge��lies in scaling pilot projects across the entire��organization.��

In this context, the time and effort��required��for a full implementation��is��frequently��underestimated. Around six months are needed to build a robust data foundation. A further��12��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:��

• 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��change management:��Technology alone is not enough. Organizational transformation is and��remains��the decisive success factor.��

From AI hype to real value 

Building a new application is��only the first��step.��On the path to scaling, lifecycle management, identity and access management, security, compliance, and governance must all be consistently taken into account.��Release management, testing, and continuous improvement processes add further complexity.��“�ճ����companies��that��invest in the right foundation today will benefit from AI to its full extent tomorrow,” says Andre Bechtold,��president and��head of 51����Industries & Experiences.��

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,��head of Energy & Natural Resources Industries��at SAP,��summarizes��it as follows:��“AI is fundamentally transforming the energy industry. The business must understand what is technologically possible. And IT must understand what the business needs.”��

��can��provide��the��essential foundation for this. AI is already natively embedded in the suite in the form of Joule. This��can open up��concrete use cases for the energy industry:��in the area of asset management and predictive maintenance, utilities��can��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%.��

Distributed energy requires intelligent networking 

The topic of��distributed��energy��resources (DER) remains of��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��that��generate their own energy will actively feed it back into the grid.��

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

The ��solution��provides a platform��for��a��single source��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.

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

SAP Experience Centers: experiencing AI, not just discussing it 

To make AI tangible, SAP Experience Centers offer visitors the opportunity to experience AI in real-world scenarios beyond classic demo environments. One central example is the 51����Energy Park in Walldorf. Using real infrastructure on the campus, SAP 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 51����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—alongside technological innovation—is 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—it creates a responsibility to adopt innovation in a controlled, resilient, and purpose‑driven 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’t revolutionize the consumption of IT when people started expecting the same ease of use in the workplace?

“AI 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.”

One of E.ON’s biggest challenges is closing the widening gap between the rapid pace of technological innovation in the outside world and the organization’s 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’s green energy transformation.

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

“Bringing the system up to speed requires internal readiness. It means we must think deeply about investments, prioritization, and most importantly, people and culture,” said Weber. “One thing is sure: we won’t be going back to what was normal speed before.”

Becoming strategic

E.ON operates across three domains: energy grid, customer solutions, and energy infrastructure solutions. ��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’s 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 51����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’s journey is the importance of embedding digital capabilities into the heart of operations. “We’ve moved away from isolated innovation hubs such as digital labs or experimental ‘garages’ in favor of integrating digital tools directly into business processes,” 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’s 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.

“In essence, our experience highlights a broader truth about digital transformation,” said the IT expert. “Success really depends on balance. We absolutely must push innovation forward, but not at the expense of stability, cyber security or governance.”

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’s 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’s a fundamental shift in how technology drives business success, turning technology into a cornerstone of making new energy work—reliably, 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, 51����empowers utilities to own their energy transition.��

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��prosumers��alike. The number of connected assets is growing rapidly, generating vast amounts of operational, commercial, and customer data. Managing this��data reliably and consistently is one of the defining challenges of the next energy decade.��

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��data orchestration:��a trusted, intelligent foundation that harmonizes��information across every process, partner, and device and ensures they��own rather than rent��their energy transition capabilities.��

From distributed assets to orchestrated intelligence 

�ճ����51����Distributed Energy Resources��solution is designed to��meet exactly��this challenge. Built on 51����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.��

Rather than acting as an operational control system, 51����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. 

“The complexity our customers face with prosumer data is exponential. They need reliability, performance, and consistency across all their data sources, and that’s exactly where 51����Distributed Energy Resources comes in.” 

Kim Maren Ekrutt, Global Industry Business Unit Utilities Co‑Head, SAP 

Two pillars of the 51����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��how energy is consumed, produced, stored, and shared, enabling new energy community and peer-to-peer��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.��

Connecting data, processes, and people 

Utilities already rely on 51����for mission-critical processes such as meter to cash, asset management, and customer experience. 51����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. 51����has assembled a curated ecosystem of specialist technology partners, each bringing deep domain expertise that complements SAP’s enterprise data platform. Data stays with the utility, business logic��remains��under their control, and the customer relationship belongs to them.��

SAP’s technology partners extend the platform across six critical domains: 

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

“Our role is to help utilities master the growing data complexity and turn it into opportunity. With 51����Distributed Energy Resources and our partner ecosystem, we’re connecting data, processes, and partners into one intelligent platform that enables utilities to own their energy transition.” 

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

About 51����Distributed Energy Resources 

51����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 SAP’s 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.��

Mateu Munar is senior director of Industry Business Unit Utilities at SAP.

Philipp Lübcke, CIO at Thüringer Energie AG, has worked in the industry for 20 years and is thrilled by the dynamism it is currently going through. But that wasn’t always the case. “When I got started in the energy sector, the business was relatively static, and I’ll admit that I was tempted by other industries over the last decade,” he says. Today, he no longer sees any need to change. Just the opposite, in fact: in recent years, the business “has become extremely exciting, and it will stay exciting,” Lübcke 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’s core business—supplying electricity—is undergoing drastic changes. Lübcke emphasizes: “The energy transition is irreversible, and that doesn’t only mean the end of nuclear power, but also the end of coal-fired generation in the long term.”

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 Lübcke. “We give the municipalities in Thuringia all the support we can when it comes to executing the transition locally,” he says. To succeed, this energy transition requires perfect coordination of what experts refer to as “the three big Ds”: decarbonization requires decentralization, which in turn is only possible with maximum digitalization. 

Which brings us to SAP, TEAG’s largest and most important strategic partner. In 2022, TEAG decided to move all its core processes for the energy sector—meter reading, billing, device management, contract and customer management, information exchange, and subledger accounting—to 51����S/4HANA Cloud in the long term. “That made us the first energy supplier with a comprehensive��,” Lübcke says. “The 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.” 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 51����S/4HANA core—initially on premise—including 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 51����projects.��

In the second step, TEAG implemented 51����S/4HANA Utilities, an ERP solution specifically for energy suppliers, together with the 51����Customer Experience portfolio based on 51����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�� for workforce management. To this end, the company developed a road map in 2024, “so we can optimally leverage everything we need for this,” Lübcke says.

Demographic change is forcing the transition

The utility company aims to decommission all its current 51����systems by the end of 2027 and move them to 51����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 SAP, is a result of the fourth “big D” in this story: demographics. “We won’t be able to completely replace the many employees who will be retiring in the next 10 years,” Lübcke says. “That’s why we need to become more independent of labor-intensive processes overall.”

Working in the cloud means getting a boost from AI

The company’s 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. ��

And people who work in the cloud—with the resulting consistent focus on platform strategy and standardization—can take advantage of artificial intelligence in many areas. Take , for example. This copilot is based on generative AI and learns from 51����data to help give users context-sensitive support.

All in all, “IT will take center stage more than ever for energy suppliers,” Lübcke says. “And business IT is also getting closer to key business decisions than ever before. That’s what gives the job so much variety and makes it so exciting.”

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 SAP, 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 “green,” and whether they can produce energy themselves—by 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—from 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 “distributed energy resources” are?

Traditionally, our energy has been generated in large, centralized power plants and sent—in one direction, via a transmission system operator and distribution system operator—to 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 51����help suppliers manage distributed energy resources?

Our enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can already cover all of a company’s 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 51����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 51����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 51����offer for managing sustainability goals and compliance?

SAP’s sustainability portfolio is extensive. It provides answers to questions such as “What are my supply chain emissions?” and “What emissions does a specific product I supply or manufacture produce?” 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, 51����offers and . Then we have the 51����Green Token solution and , which aligns carbon and financial data.

Did 51����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’re 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—because that’s what matters most.

What is SAP’s strategy for utilities?

We help our customers migrate from their existing 51����ERP Central Component (51����ECC) and SAP S/4HANA IS-U systems to a cloud-based to help ensure that they have a consistent data layout. The standardized digital core with SAP 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 SAP’s 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’ve 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 51����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 51����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 51����and customizing and enhancing 51����Field Service Management, including customizing the 51����Field Service Management, connector for 51����ERP, in order to meet the company’s 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 51����specialist at ONTRAS, explained: “Our internal staff extracted data from SAP, while external staff used a manual Excel logging process, which made it difficult to understand the status of orders.”

The external staff was receiving the orders through the 51����system, but it was not possible to track their work. Feedback was received within the 51����system only after completion, and the logs were uploaded to SAP, which meant the company lacked visibility into the steps in between.

ONTRAS needed a solution to maintain maintenance plans and functional locations within 51����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.

“With the full integration of logs and smart forms, we achieved a much faster checklist revision,” Eva Scholl, a maintenance engineer at ONTRAS, shared. “Now we have an end-to-end digital process, so the process runtime in itself is one of the greatest benefits.”

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 51����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 51����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.

“Now, 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,” Scholl added. “Previously, there was a manual communication interface, which inevitably led to information loss.”

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.

“With 51����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.”

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 51����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.

“This 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.”

Convista played a crucial role in guiding the company through the 51����implementation process, acting as the interface between 51����and the company while adjusting 51����Field Service Management to meet ONTRAS’ 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.��Additionally, the company collaborated with for the technical implementation of the 51����Field Service Management, connector for 51����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 51����ERP Central Component and is transitioning to , having already implemented 51����Field Service Management. Winkler noted that they strategically rely on cloud products: “Our philosophy is not cloud only, but cloud first.”

ONTRAS aims to advance further with smart forms and continue to expand its 51����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, 51����Build Apps, which aids its transformation journey with 51����Business Technology Platform (51����BTP).

50Hertz’s citizen developers implemented a mobile application for the company’s 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 51����system as functional locations.

Why 50Hertz decided to use 51����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,��the responsibility for certain areas could only be shared between a few technicians.

After collaborating with the 51����AppHaus team in Berlin, the company identified a use case for its future accounting solution and evaluated different scenarios. Ultimately, the innovative capabilities of 51����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’s more, in 51����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 SAP Build Apps could not only help enhance operational agility and speed responses to business requirements, it could also integrate seamlessly with existing 51����S/4HANA architecture.

Martin Glatzel, enterprise architect at 51����AppHaus Berlin, expressed his satisfaction with the collaboration with the 50Hertz team: “With only very limited support from our side, the 50Hertz citizen developers succeeded in using 51����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.”

What the maintenance apps improved

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

• 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:��

• 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 51����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: “While 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 51����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.”

Imke Vierjahn is communications lead at 51����AppHaus.

As organizations strive to optimize energy usage, enhance customer experiences, and streamline operations, AI emerges as a pivotal technology. 51����Business AI can revolutionize the utilities sector through reliable, relevant, and responsible solutions.����

To learn more, read this article or this for an in-depth look at recent 51����Business AI innovations. 

Strategic Impacts of AI on Utilities

51����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° 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.��

How AI Will Transform Utilities

51����Business AI offers a range of scenarios across various business functions: 

• Customer experience: AI capabilities in 51����Emarsys Customer Engagement and the 51����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 51����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 Südbayern optimizes the incident creation process with SAP’s support assistant, enhancing the responsiveness and effectiveness of its customer service operations. 

These examples underscore the ability of 51����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 51����Business AI, companies can leverage SAP’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. 

51����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 51����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:

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

For more insights into SAP’s AI innovations and their application in the utilities sector, join us in Miami, Florida, September 9-11 at 51����for Utilities, presented by ASUG. .

Matthew London is vice president of North America Central Renewable Energy & Utilities at SAP.

With one specific device assignment use case in mind and based on its existing relationship with 51����AppHaus, Iren approached 51����in early 2024. The company’s 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’s more, the company wished to have transparent process insights and get real-time updates on device status and availability.

Building on 51����BTP

To work on this innovation step, Iren Group’s IT department asked for expertise support in testing and applying 51����Build Apps. For a first kick-off meeting, the 51����AppHaus team invited Burak Demir, product manager, 51����Build Apps, to join the project. With the customer’s system landscape built on 51����Business Technology Platform (51����BTP), the joint project team took a first step to check the 51����Discovery Center site for existing solutions. They encountered a helpful use case in the “” 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’s system landscape.

The New Solution: 51����Build Apps and 51����Build Work Zone

The new solution consists of different components, such as 51����Build Apps, 51����S/4HANA, 51����Build Work Zone, as well as the 51����S/4HANA solution for waste and recycling, which provides a platform for managing device records and information.

“My role in this project was to be available for very specific questions,” Demir says. “Iren’s citizen developers did a great job in using and applying the available material and resources! They used 51����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 51����Build Apps.”

Smooth Operations and Transparency in Device Management

With the new web application that was built with 51����Build Apps and deployed to 51����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’s more, it brought about significant time savings, enhanced transparency, and much-desired visibility into device status.

“In 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 51����Build Apps web form into SAP,” Sara Miola, IT specialist at Iren Group, says. “We have achieved significant time savings and increased efficiency, as the time spent has been reduced from several days to few minutes. The implementation of 51����has enabled us to overcome our challenges, resulting in streamlined processes and enhanced device management effectiveness.”

But with so many new partner-developed apps moving through the industry cloud pipeline and to 51����Store lately, I’ve learned not to underestimate how compelling the opportunities are for partners to commercialize new use cases to extend SAP’s 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’re being commercialized, underscores several noteworthy trends for 51����partners:

1. �ճ�����’s 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 51����partners to enhance and extend 51����solutions in the utilities sector by developing their own solutions using 51����Business Technology Platform (51����BTP).
3. Partners are taking advantage of the plentiful resources SAP’s industry cloud offers to help support and expedite the commercialization process.

Let’s 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’s all by design. We’ve realized that to give customers exactly what they need to thrive, it’s often better to let our partners use their expertise to augment the 51����portfolio with solutions they develop themselves, with assistance from us where and when it’s needed.

That could include extensions and enhancements to 51����Utilities Core, a solution that is . A glance at SAP’s 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’ve 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 51����partners. A from 51����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’re actively encouraging partners to get involved in the co-innovation effort because with the new partner-friendly revenue models we’ve incorporated into industry cloud, there’s a strong business case for them to do so.

Further strengthening that business case are all the resources 51����is dedicating to support partners in the effort to identify and monetize their use cases for the utilities market. We’re 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’ve 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 51����Store. We’re 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 51����Co-Innovation Lab, where partners can receive technical advice and individual support. Next comes the “sprint” to the finish line, with regular check-ins, progress reviews, and additional support from SAP. The final step is onboarding to 51����Store, again with expert guidance from SAP.

Not only do we plan to offer additional rounds of SPRINT1 for utility solutions, we’ve also developed an , where individuals in the field and 51����customers can learn more about specific partner-developed solutions and industry cloud opportunities within the utilities segment – in under 30 minutes.

As evidenced by resources like these, we’re 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 SAP.

Interconnection is the first aspect of the intelligent 51����Customer Experience (51����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 51����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 SAP. “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.”

51����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. SAP’s 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 51����Service Cloud with native integration to meter to cash in the 51����for Utilities portfolio, the core of energy and water back-office processes.

51����Sales Cloud equips sales teams with the right tools in today’s complex selling environment. When used in combination, 51����Service Cloud and 51����Sales Cloud can .

Innovative products require an online presence, which is where 51����Commerce Cloud, subscription management add-on, delivers a store front and e-commerce platform suited and ready for any utility offering.

51����Emarsys Customer Engagement is the new marketing solution to personalize interactions and 51����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 51����Customer Experience solutions, not only with implementation services but also enhancing 51����offering with apps; for example, through 51����store.

“We now have more than 14 apps built for 51����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 SAP’s investment in CX and the industries and we value the innovation. Utilities can easily see how the standard 51����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�� intelligent CX from SAP. Adaption means that feature-rich 51����applications can be personalized, extended, integrated, and composed with other apps; for example, industry cloud partners.

51����is on a mission to help make utilities businesses more customer-centric. Discover , and explore road maps to discover how 51����plans to improve the integration design of sales orders for utilities commodity contracts in 51����S/4HANA��.

Robert Straubinger is chief solution expert for Solution Management Utilities at SAP.

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 “record profits,” he said.

“Last year, they made $200 billion in the midst of a global energy crisis.�� I think it’s outrageous.” He also said that “Big Oil” should be investing more, to increase production and bring down prices.

SAP’s Take

Biden was walking a fine line trying to balance the industry’s contribution to climate change, as well as its record profits last year, with the nation’s dependence on hydrocarbon fuels, not just to heat home and power automobiles, said Benjamin Beberness, 51����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.

“I think the U.S. government is saying: ‘We 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,’” 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.

“There has to be some commitment from the U.S. government that we can maintain, because what [oil companies] don’t want to do is to make this huge investment in the additional production and other things and then have the US government say: ‘We’re going to put all these regulations in place.’”

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, SAP
+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.**

Pressure 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,�� the price cap for gas and energy — “Gas- und Strompreisbremse” — 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.

“51����works hand in hand with the German-speaking 51����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” explains Daniela Sellmann, global vice president and head of the Utilities Industry Business Unit at 51����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.

“This causes a shift in utilities’ business models, from pure selling of energy and water to becoming a full-service provider for energy flexumers,” 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 “smart,” 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 SAP, 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 51����Utilities Core solution.

“With 51����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 51����Business Technology Platform and the industry cloud with solutions like 51����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 51����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 51����provides for it, see “.” Learn more about how 51����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 51����Utilities Core at SAP.

*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.

SAP’s Take

“Domestically as well as globally, there is a strong mandate to move to a net-zero greenhouse gas economy,” said Stefan Wolf, vice president and a solar expert in SAP’s .

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

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 “either/or”; 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’t the only alternative energy source worth pursuing, according to Wolf: “PV-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.”

For example, “If we look further into the future there is tidal energy. Compared to��solar��and wind, the tides can be forecast precisely so it could be a very dependable source of energy.” 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, “When it comes to empowerment of the consumer and bringing energy generation to the place of consumption, solar��is hard to beat.”

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

“There is no life on earth without the sun, and it’s there for everyone,” said Anselma Wörner, COO and one of the three cofounders of Exnaton, a Swiss company that develops software for communities trading renewable energy in local neighborhoods.

Wörner was explaining how her company created a smart energy system at the recent����in Munich, Germany. “We have a new generation of prosumers – people who consume and produce their own energy – who are using new connected technologies and renewable power like solar to exchange energy through the grid.”

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’s why the cofounders picked the name ��for their enterprise. Looking for a word that connects “energy” and “exchange,” 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.

“At the moment, there is no value for the community, and we want to change that,” said Wörner, who is responsible for fundraising, data science, and recruiting at Exnaton. “What most people don’t realize is that renewable energy is not always produced when it’s needed most. So, when it is available, prosumers should be able to sell their energy directly.”

People who own solar panels could actually sell a lot of energy to other households, if only they had the means. Wörner 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. “Prosumers 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,” she explained.

Community Centric

Enter Exnaton’s EnergyCommunity software add-on for�� solutions, which won an����in the Partner Paragon category together with Best Practice Consulting (BPC) and is now available on 51����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’s 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 51����billing system thanks to the integration offered by Exnaton in working with the 51����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.

“The 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,” said��the technology expert, who has a PhD in Information Systems. “At the end of the day, with Exnaton’s energy sharing software-as-a-service platform, energy suppliers can offer their customers more independence.”

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’t have access to affordable, sustainable energy, which is why providing energy is goal seven on the list of the��. 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����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 Wörner 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?

.

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. “The worst storms will get worse,” 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.

SAP’s 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.

“We believe that the water utilities can have a major impact on what is happening right now,” says Daniela Sellmann, global vice president and head of at 51����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. “One 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,” 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 – including connected pressure and flow sensors, smart meters and software such as real-time analytics and predictive maintenance apps – 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. “Losing 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,” 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, SAP
+1 (646) 923-2834, ilaina.jonas@sap.com

“The well-being of our service technicians is very close to our hearts,” says Claus Jürgen Bader, product manager at Netze BW. “We want all our people to return home safely at the end of their work assignments.” With this in mind, Netze BW approached 51����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’ provider EnBW and is responsible for more than two million customers in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

How Service Technicians Benefit from the “NeWa” App

Together with SAP, Netze BW started developing an Apple Watch app called “NeWa” (Netze Watch). This way, Netze BW’s service technicians can always be up-to-date on their assigned work orders and can directly submit data from the app to 51����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’s 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’s more, they often work at remote locations, many times under hazardous conditions and alone.

Conceptual Design from 51����within One Week

Netze BW and 51����outlined a solution with 51����AppHaus in a very short time. 51����sent off the high-fidelity screens to development in just four business days by applying the so-called “speedboat” method based on . This approach focuses on understanding the users’ 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 51����to show a solution that can ensure efficient bidirectional data exchange from Apple Watch to 51����and back – that is, between service technicians and central departments.

Working closely with Netze BW, the 51����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 (“NeWa”) Apple Watch app has been developed by Netze BW and EnBW in-house developers based on metering processes for utilities solutions from 51����and 51����EAM Work Order on Apple Watch.

“With the help from Apple and 51����we now improve and, in some cases, save the lives of Netze BW’s service technicians,” says Mark Zimmermann, head CoE Mobile Solutions at EnBW. “A big thank you to the design thinking method applied by 51����AppHaus. We had an extraordinary journey and learned a lot.”

The NeWa Apple Watch App

The NeWa app will soon be seamlessly connected to Netze BW’s 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’s 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 “NeMo” app, run on iPhone and enable data exchange with 51����applications like 51����S/4HANA via 51����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 51����backend systems with no extra effort.

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

In the future, Netze BW’s IT team plans to replace the existing on-premise architecture – 51����Gateway and 51����Mobile Platform – with 51����Business Technology Platform (51����BTP) and the corresponding software development kit (SDK) for iOS, as well as 51����Integration Suite and 51����Extension Suite to connect with 51����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 51����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 51����Innovation Award

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

Simon Hartmann, software architect for Mobile Development at EnBW, says: “We at Netze BW and EnBW were delighted to receive an 51����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 51����for the initial trigger and to 51����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 51����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 51����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 51����systems, such as within the wind offshore environment.

What’s 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 SAP.

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’s 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 SAP, organizations serving every community – from rural to urban and everything in between – care about efficiency, sustainability, and the circular economy.

“Whether it’s 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,” said McClelland. “The 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.”

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’s 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’s digitalization plans that included a network of smart meters based on the Internet of Things (IoT).

“We are a purpose-driven, customer-focused business,” said Sharma. “Our 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.”

Operational Efficiencies from IoT-Based Sensors

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

Sharma equated technology innovation with her company’s 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 ��to connect information to billing and other systems. Unlike yesteryear’s 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.

“We won’t have to wait until the end of the month for usage data,” said Sharma. “We 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’s very important for us to use our own resources to efficiently and better manage water distribution across our communities.”

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.

“You need solutions that will provide up-to-the-minute information, surfacing water consumption trends on a daily basis,” said Sharma. “Analyzing that data, we can see if a customer’s consumption is consistent with or outside of historical norms. Having this on-demand data available can help us conduct proactive maintenance to prevent disruptions.”

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

“It takes a lot of steps to deliver clean water from the source to the customer’s faucet,” she said. “Technology 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.”

Smart Communities are the Future

Smart meters are a harbinger of what’s 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) ��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.

.

Farys’ business and sustainability transformation was the focus of a recent LinkedIn Live roundtable discussion, “.” Moderated by Maribel Lopez, CEO of , the session featured Inge Opreel, CIO of Farys, and Aneesha Shenoy, COO of 51����Business Technology Platform (51����BTP).

Farys started its platform journey several years ago when – like many utility companies around the world – Opreel begun implementing smart meters. This project resulted in a huge influx of data, but most employees were unable to access or easily use this information.

Moreover, the company had a complex IT landscape with on-premise and cloud-based applications and needed to monitor processes throughout the layers.

That’s when Opreel began the search for a technology platform. “We needed a cloud platform that could integrate data and business apps into a single source of truth, perform extensive analytics, and introduce innovative technologies,” said Opreel.

Farys was familiar with , having used it to build its self-service customer portal, which resulted in lower costs and increased customer satisfaction. However, the key strength the platform brought was through and capabilities.

“We needed to access data, analyze it, and integrate it back into our systems,” said Opreel. With 51����BTP, Farys can obtain meter indexes, view water volumes used, receive alerts, and use water usage data to build new services for its customers.

Moving forward, Opreel wants to use the platform to help Farys become more sustainable by addressing water scarcity, which is an ever-increasing problem due to climate change. Using data from its smart meters, Farys can improve its understanding of water inflows and outflows – and pinpoint where and why water losses occur via leaks, fraud, or other means.

Farys’ reasons for evaluating 51����BTP resonated with Shenoy. “It’s exciting to see how the platform enables Farys to realize its purpose – whether it’s innovating new business models to generate new revenue streams or helping achieve the top, bottom, and green lines,” said Shenoy.

Shenoy highlighted other instances where a platform strategy is a critical business enabler. First, with so much sociopolitical instability, companies need the ability to do integrated, enterprise-wide planning, which can analyze data across multiple lines of business. 51����BTP lets companies use that information to create business simulations and conduct predictive planning while connected to live, real-time data – helping executives to make better-informed decisions.

Second, as companies move IT systems to the cloud they need to “lift and shift” on-premise data easily. acts a bridge so companies can bring data with them, without having to build a data warehouse from scratch.

Third, Shenoy said companies want to democratize application development. “We can help replace complex software development with easy drag-and-drop, low-code/no-code software,” said Shenoy. “We accelerate the development process and enable anyone to create applications on their own.”

How to Develop a Successful Platform Strategy

Opreel advises when companies select a platform, they need to start by thinking big. “Have a big scope in mind and develop a holistic view about where you want to go in the future,” said Opreel. “Platforms contain so many components, having that perspective will help you think architecturally and put the right set up in place for your current and future use cases.”

Next, she recommends that companies start with smaller projects that organizations can learn from. For Farys, the first use cases centered on harnessing Big Data generated by smart meters. But this approach was new and Opreel’s team helped shift employees’ mindsets from managing smaller data volumes to considering the new opportunities provided by advanced data management and analytics. “Show your business units what benefits are possible with the power of data by giving examples and advice,” said Opreel.

But the real value comes once an organization moves beyond proof-of-concept projects to embedding the new technology in daily processes. “It’s important that everyone from management to field workers can use the technology,” said Opreel. “The right platform can transform your organization once it’s integrated with your ERP and other cloud systems.”

Farys’ platform strategy has changed how the company views innovation. “It has enabled us to level up our innovation approach,” said Opreel. “Rather than individual business units driving innovation independently, our comprehensive platform strategy has encouraged everyone to view it as a broad innovation platform on which to share ideas.”

To learn more, .

The e-mobility transformation is underway, and chances are good that you are witnessing it on the streets of your own town. More and more consumers are choosing electric-powered transport over the internal combustion engine, and this despite supply chain disruptions due to the ongoing global pandemic.

As battery range improves, charging infrastructure expands, and government incentives gain traction, the popularity of electric vehicles (EVs) . According to the Electric Vehicle World Sales Database, in 2021 all regions witnessed strong , with growth rates three to eight times higher than for the overall light-vehicle market. By 2026, , EVs will account for more than half of light vehicles sold globally.

But there are still hurdles to overcome. Case-in-point is a charging infrastructure that is unevenly distributed and cannot keep up with demand. For example, Europe only has around per 100,000 inhabitants, while the U.S. has roughly 37 charge points on the same per-capita basis. This is causing many potential EV converts to take a “wait-and-see” stance until they are assured of a viable charging infrastructure in their area.

The successful transition to e-mobility will therefore require huge and related technologies. Industry experts agree that demand can only be satisfied through a which includes semi-public charging options like privately run charging stations, office and retail parking lots, home garages, and government-provided locations.

51����E-Mobility: Intelligent Charging Experience

Establishing a ubiquitous charge-point network is only one side of the coin. Charge-point providers will also need to provide consumers an easy, intelligent, and automated charging experience. Think of the one-click online-shopping experience consumers have become accustomed to and you get the idea. Achieving this level of service requires an intelligent software platform that is interconnected with other mobility-related business tasks and immediately recognizes the charging profile of your vehicle when you register at the charging point.

In September 2021, 51����launched 51����E-Mobility, a standardized, cloud-based solution that provides a complete package that enables charge point operators to run their business efficiently and profitably.

“51����E-Mobility is targeted at companies where mobility is the core business, such as logistics companies managing large vehicle fleets or mobility-as-a-service providers such as public transit, municipalities, and private ground transportation,” explains Ulrich Scholl, vice president and chief product manager for 51����E-Mobility.

The enterprise-grade capabilities of 51����E-Mobility offer integration with other software solutions for expense reimbursement management, analytics, cost management, billing, and invoicing.

Transition to an Emissions-Free Car Fleet by 2030

Since 2009, 51����has made sustainability a key pillar of its corporate strategy and annually discloses its own sustainability performance in an . It is only logical, therefore, that 51����would use the business software it develops to increase its own operational efficiency. This is exactly what the company is doing with 51����E-Mobility.

To make good on its promise to become carbon neutral by 2023, 51����is applying the standard solution for its own electric vehicles, which comprise nearly one-fifth of its total fleet of around 27,000 company cars. Battery electric vehicles have been part of the company’s fleet since 2010, and their share is growing as part of the company’s transition to an emissions-free fleet by 2030. Coupled with the decision to go 100% electric by latest 2030 is a pledge to employees that the charging infrastructure at its facilities can meet growing demand.

E-Vehicle Charging Infrastructure: Flexibility Is Key

The 51����Austria office in Vienna was the company’s first corporate location to implement 51����E-Mobility. Currently one-quarter of the 400 company cars at 51����Austria are battery electric vehicles, with a significant transition to electric planned in the coming years.

The charging infrastructure is operated by SAP’s facility management team in Vienna as part of its overall responsibility for asset management. Charging capacity is supplemented by a photovoltaic system that is also connected to the electricity grid.

“Flexibility is key to any enterprise charging concept because employees want to be able to charge their cars at work, public charging points, and private charging points at home,” says Steffen Krautwasser, head of Global Car Fleet at SAP. “The operation of our charging infrastructure in Austria is based on our strategic adoption road map of 51����E-Mobility and marks a critical milestone for adoption at our other locations.”

Strong fluctuations in office use during the pandemic have shown the importance of flexibility. Close coordination between the fleet manager and facilities manager in creating an adaptable strategy is of the utmost importance. 51����E-Mobility enables flexible charging at work and supports reimbursement of private charging at home via software for travel and expense management.

Charge-Point Sharing for Sustainable E-Mobility in Cities

Some cities and communities are looking to bridge the current shortage in public charging capacity by opening private charging infrastructure to the public. “Since the number of public charging stations is increasing more slowly than demand, it is particularly relevant to open up semi-public charging points to as many users as possible,” says Scholl.

This is where the versatility of SAP’s new solution comes through.

“51����E-Mobility gives us the ability to open up access and billing options to any user, and we can scale the system to new requirements rapidly as required,” says Robert Diglas, head of regional facilities for 51����in Austria, Switzerland, Central Europe, and Ukraine. ��“For example, the flexible solution will enable us to open up our charging points to customers and business partners if and when we decide to do so.”

But SAP’s e-mobility vision extends well beyond the office parking lot. In 2021, the company started a co-innovation project with UnternehmerTUM, the city of Munich, and other partners from the mobility and energy industries. Together, they are developing new concepts based on to improve charge-point coverage in German cities.

The integration of private charge points is just one focus area, according to Scholl. “With 51����E-Mobility, we are just beginning to help our customers and partners turn mobility as a service into a reality,” he says. “The collaboration with innovative partners and real-life testing by citizens has delivered innovative use cases and thoughtful insights into how sustainable e-mobility, as one mode of urban transportation, can work in the future.”

Customers and partners can experience the 51����E-Mobility solution in action at the company’s in Walldorf, Germany, and Bangalore, India.

Managing Ever Complex Asset Networks at Minimum Cost

As these networks grow and become more complex, RetiPiù must ensure safety and reliability through daily maintenance performed by its field workers. It is also crucial for them to quickly identify critical network events and efficiently prioritize, schedule, and track field-service assignments and maintenance activities.

But disparate asset management systems made it hard to prioritize and schedule maintenance calls. In addition, they were not integrated with the company’s core enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Moving from Reactive to Predictive Maintenance

To increase efficiency and optimize resources, RetiPiù looked to move from a reactive to a predictive maintenance model. The goal was to understand critical events as early as possible, track and trace issues from alert to resolution, get better visibility into maintenance schedules and work-order status, and use that information to better manage maintenance across the network.

To meet these goals, RetiPiù required a unified intelligent asset maintenance system that workers could access from the field and that was integrated with its intelligent ERP software.

One Central Asset Intelligence System to Speed up Maintenance Cycles and Lower Costs

As its utilities networks continue to grow, RetiPiù S.r.l. deployed to help improve data quality and access for engineers and back-office teams. Building on that digital transformation, it then added the 51����Enterprise Asset Management solution to help configure digital twins for equipment and activate predictive models respectively. These algorithms help assess and prioritize maintenance requirements and optimize resources. The company leverages the solution to gather detailed sensor data from across the network assets to share information via mobile applications with field technicians, who get information and update the status of work orders in real time.

Increasing Productivity and Improving Customer Service with Smarter Asset Maintenance

The system currently supports thousands of pieces of equipment. In addition to making maintenance simpler and more efficient, asset and maintenance data – including cost data – are immediately available for analysis in . As a public utility, the real beneficiaries are RetiPiù customers that now have faster activation service. And in addition, RetiPiù benefits by being rewarded by the Italian government for its continually reliable service.

The most striking benefits the utilities company gained are:

• 100% increase in assets that can be managed on the network – from 12,000 to 24,000 pieces of equipment
• 50% reduction in maintenance cost
  
• 15%-20% less time needed to activate new gas customers
• Increased efficiency and resource optimization
• Improved prioritization of field-service assignments and maintenance tasks
• Improved field operations effectiveness through mobile system access to maintenance staff
• One single platform to manage data and analytics for all assets – creating a fully integrated and transparent maintenance process from order to the field and back

Real-Time Data Transfer from Technician Mobile Apps to Back-End ERP Systems

“In choosing an intelligent, predictive maintenance solution, integration with our core ERP systems was key. With ��and , we have one unified system that provides everyone the visibility they need to work efficiently and effectively,” says Massimo De Filippi, director of Technical and Information Services and Design at RetiPiù S.r.l.

He continues: “This project has allowed RetiPiù to ensure service continuity and avoid shutdowns. We can provide quality service while also reducing costs. We are a public company, so the ultimate benefit is for the citizens.”

“By being able to access data and reports in real time, field engineers can intervene promptly whenever issues arise, improving the customer experience and strengthening our reputation as a trusted energy provider,” says Mario Carlo Borgotti, managing director of RetiPiù.

In regard to future plans and after being live with the gas network, RetiPiù now has a template for rolling out intelligent asset management and predictive maintenance to its electricity and public lighting networks. As the next step, it will enable simulation of maintenance requirements for new assets that have yet to be added and include geolocation services for route optimization.

To learn more about how to enable intelligent asset management processes, , “The Building Blocks of Industry 4.0 with Intelligent Assets.”

Karin Fent is senior director of Global Customer Success Digital Supply Chain at SAP.

The startups in the cohorts are building innovative solutions to drive sustainability for consumer and retail companies across the value chain in areas including reusable packaging and responsible and ethical supply chain. The startups will also focus on helping companies in the energy and natural resources industries manage sustainability goals including compliance, regulation, tracking and carbon trading.

Over the next 16 weeks, the startups will work alongside curated sustainability and technology experts from Accenture and SAP, with access to 51����technology and application programming interfaces (APIs) and opportunities to collaborate with 51����and Accenture customers around the world. The startups will integrate with 51����solutions such as and and leverage Accenture’s and broad industry knowledge, building upon the companies’ long-standing partnership and shared commitment to . The following startups are participating in the SAP.iO Foundries North America sustainability cohorts:

Consumer and Retail

• offers a circular platform that encourages consumers to buy in a more convenient, affordable way with zero waste and connects people, brands and retailers to change consumption habits.
• calculates the carbon emissions of business activities, then programmatically offsets those emissions by funding impactful certified carbon offset projects like planting trees or building windfarms.
• leverages blockchain and Internet of Things technology to offer transparency into supply chains for clarity on quality, origin, sustainability footprint and compliance standards.
• helps customers run their business differently with real-time data intelligence from each of their products end to end, from factory to consumer and beyond.
• provides a dynamic and risk-assessment-based quality compliance program for digitalization, automation, transparency and traceability.
• is a platform for sustainable shipping including reusable packaging, real-time tracking and predictive analytics.
• delivers a purpose-built platform for specification management that changes how brands, suppliers, manufacturers and retailers manage data and collaborate to bring products to market.

Energy and Natural Resources

• accelerates a clean energy future by enabling utilities and consumers to make data-driven energy decisions.
• empowers utilities and energy providers with systemwide visibility, forecasting and advanced controls to balance local renewable supply with flexible demand for a distributed, zero-carbon future.
• incentivizes transparent and traceable collection, sourcing and recycling of plastic waste globally.
• is the world’s first digital oil analyst. It leverages satellite technology and AI to create a digital twin of the oil supply chain, from well to wheel.
• is a data and analytics company that helps customers reduce their carbon emissions.
• covers the vendor management activities from vendor scouting to vendor qualification, vendor performance evaluation and assessment of vendor financials, compliance and sustainability.

Visit the . Follow 51����on Twitter at .

Media Contact:
Stacy Ries, +1 (484) 619-0411, stacy.ries@sap.com, ET
51����Press Room; press@sap.com

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to 51����are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 51����undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
© 2021 51����SE. All rights reserved.
51����and other 51����products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51����SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

Enabling climate action through technology is top of mind for customers in industries around the globe, but the topic was particularly remarkable to the gathering of North American utility organizations at the annual conference in San Diego on October 17-19. These are organizations that not only face the emergency environmental situations intensified by climate change, like hurricanes and fires, but are also daily witnesses to energy consumption and, increasingly, adoption of more sustainable energy sources.

It’s no surprise then that sustainability was a key track at the conference, addressing head-on the challenges that North American utilities face as they grow and innovate against the looming presence of climate change. With keynotes from world-renowned experts and boots-on-the-ground insight – 90% of the track sessions were led by customers – here are the top takeaways on how sustainability is shaping the utilities industry.

Technology Is the Most Critical Tool to Combat Climate Challenges

While utilities have been responding to the impact of climate challenges for decades, the last few years have made the challenge acute: more intense natural disasters, the swift adoption of electric vehicles, and even the overnight shift to remote work. All of these have a significant impact on the energy grid – and when coupled with an escalation of regulation around sustainability, utilities are working under incredible market complexity.

The response, from industry experts and utility managers alike, was clear: to manage these challenges, companies need to gather, track, and understand their data. And the only way to do that is through and smart software.

“The most important thing is the ability to measure: to know where you started and where you’re going to, where the journey ends,” said Brian Roach, managing director of Regulated Industries at SAP. “What we’re seeing now is a lot of investment in the understanding of, say, your carbon footprint and having a predictable and consistent means of measuring that.”

The Singular Impact of the Electric Vehicle

For the past century, the energy industry has looked more or less the same. But factors are colluding to upend that stasis, and none more so than the electric vehicle. Elon Musk recently went on record in order to power the transition to electric vehicles. That is a tall order for utilities. It’s also an amazing opportunity to define new approaches in the ecosystem and create new business, particularly when it comes to taking advantage of off-cycle electrical demand.

“This is where smart technology must be applied: determining when you charge, what the right time of day is, what the rates are, the priorities of what gets charged first,” said Tony Posawatz, president and CEO of Invictus iCAR LLC, in the opening keynote. “This is where some of the horsepower that exists in the industry will come to bear.”

The Opportunity Is Now to Transform the Industry

Despite the clear external pressures – regulations, customer expectations and demand, the fast-evolving climate crisis – the tone was one of optimism and excitement. This is a turning point for the industry, and organizations are eager to rise to the challenge.

“I’ve been in this industry for decades, and for the first 10 years or so it was pretty stable; there wasn’t a lot of significant change. But right now, we are in a transformative state. I see it as a huge opportunity for us to be the ones who formulate what the future of utilities looks like,” said Michael O’Donnell, regional vice president of Utilities for SAP, in the opening keynote. “For me, it couldn’t be a more exciting time. You call it disruption; I call it opportunity for us to shape this and change the future.”

Mallory Kuno works within Communications at SAP.

SaskPower is responsible for serving over 540,000 customer accounts within Saskatchewan’s geographic area of approximately 652,000 square kilometers. With that many customers spread across such a vast territory, sorting the 700 to 950 energy meters that are expected to be returned to the company daily during its AMI smart meter rollout is no small task. The manual process of entering serial numbers into a spreadsheet to determine the dispensation of this returned inventory is time- and labor-intensive, and prone to errors. The process needed to be energized.

When the SaskPower team received an invitation to participate in the three-day virtual hackathon on 51����Business Technology Platform, they jumped at the chance to use 51����technology to solve this business problem. Leading into the event, SaskPower got its business partners excited, picked out team uniforms, briefed the developer team on the task, and then dove in.

“The hackathon was a great opportunity to try out 51����tools available to our business,” said Terry Chadwick, 51����solutions architect at SaskPower. “We didn’t even think about saying no. Our team was very excited, and we jumped in to see what we could come up with.”

On day one, the SaskPower team learned all about the 51����tools at their disposal. On day two, they went to work building a conceptual framework and application. Finally, on day three, the team put the finishing touches on the app and presented to the judges. The app framework was built using a combination of 51����products, including 51����Cloud Application Programming Model and SAPUI5, 51����Workflow Management, 51����Business Rules Management, 51����Launchpad service, 51����Conversational AI, and business optical character recognition.

The result was a win for the SaskPower team with the development of the Mobile Meter Return app. Returning meters will no longer require manual data entry, and validations in the app will help protect against manual data entry errors. Now, when meters come back into the facility, meters will be scanned and validated. The tool will automatically perform the goods movement processes to receive the meters into the warehouse, recommending how the meter will be managed — for example, the meter could be marked for retirement or for reuse.

SaskPower plans to take the theoretical to the practical and is building the app, with plans to have it fully deployed in the field by August 2021.

“We had a great experience at the hackathon and winning is a testament to the hard work our team put in,” said Terry Collins, solutions architect at SaskPower. “Our coach from the 51����BTP team could not have been more supportive, and we have a great deal of trust in him and his team. Because of the strength of this relationship, we’re able to collaborate and create solutions that make our business nimbler and, ultimately, more intelligent.”

Explore how 51����Business Technology Platform brings together intelligent enterprise applications with database and data management, analytics, and integration and extension capabilities into one platform for both cloud and hybrid environments, including hundreds of prebuilt integrations for 51����and third-party applications. .

Bruno Guerrero is a senior solution advisor for 51����Business Technology Platform.

“We designed Future Grid to fill the visibility gap, bringing together real-time data and insights from smart meters so electric utilities can better manage the accelerated transition to renewable energy,” said Chris Law, co-founder and CEO at Future Grid. “This will help utilities continue to provide safe, reliable electricity services in regulatory compliance as renewable energy emerges.”

Law, who has extensive experience in the energy industry, co-founded Future Grid to meet the unique demands of utilities that weren’t fully utilizing all the data from their smart meters.

“We wanted to help utilities quickly manage data for their industry-specific outcomes,” he recalled. “Now as utilities have been increasingly challenged by the transition to renewable energy, our service is becoming even more important.”

Data Insights Improve Operations

Future Grid collects and analyzes real-time data from smart meters, whether its usage data from the consumer’s electric car, home solar panels, or other sources. Customers are primarily in Australia, but Law has set his sights on global expansion in sync with renewable energy market growth prospects.

“Smart meters from renewables are a rich source of information. Use correctly, utilities can improve services with measurable results for consumers and the organization itself,” said Law. “We’re providing a feedback loop from the grid edge into the utility’s core operational systems, helping the company make better decisions to improve core operations in the grid.”

Safety Benefits for Customers and Consumers

Future Grid addresses one of the major challenges utilities face as renewable energies are deployed at scale: voltage management. While invisible to the consumer, utilities strive behind the scenes to deliver electricity at expected and regulated voltages. The dirty secret about renewables is that the energy they generate can wreak havoc on the grid unless it’s accurately captured and analyzed.

“The benefits of renewable energy are starting to be well understood in Australia,” Law said. “We’re helping utilities use the data they’re collecting to manage that transition. They can better understand what’s going on with their network assets so they can maintain voltage levels, and potentially save lives.”

According to Law, Future Grid’s utility customers rely on the solution to predict voltage problems, guarding against potential injury or harm. In one case, the software flagged a voltage issue and the utility dispatched field crews who arrived at the home just as the consumer was on the phone reporting the problem to the company.

SAP.iO Paves the Way for Valuable Partnership

Far more than the typical analytics tool with colorful graphs and charts, Future Grid’s insights are even more powerful when integrated with and 51����Predictive Asset Insights. Law was excited about working with 51����after the Future Grid co-founders participated in the utilities accelerator program. Initial collaboration efforts include integrating Future Grid’s asset health monitoring solution into SAP.

“51����and Future Grid are a natural fit. 51����is one of the foundational vendors in the utilities industry, and we share many customers,” said Law. “If our analytics reveal a problem with a network asset, this can raise a ticket to generate a work order in the 51����system for faster response and resolution. We’re very grateful for SAP’s expertise in helping us workshop use cases to best solve our mutual customers’ biggest problems.”

Future Grid is .

Learning from Australia’s Energy Lessons

Law predicted ongoing momentum for renewable energy worldwide, creating infinite opportunities for Future Grid. That’s because utilities need to be ready to collect and manage a tsunami of data from smart meters and other renewable technologies as uptake grows.

“In Australia, we’re already rolling out renewable energy technologies at scale, where utilities have realized the considerable impact on the existing grid,” he said. “Unlike consumer apps, you have to be in the energy industry for the long haul. With perseverance, along with great mentors and partners like SAP, we’re now well positioned in the right place at the right time.”

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.

The zero-equity-ask program is designed to accelerate innovation and drive new business models for SAP’s utility customers. To be intelligent enterprises that deliver sustainable futures, utility companies need to undertake a digital transformation, which now includes environmental sustainability and energy transition. During the 12-week program, the seven selected startups will work closely with SAP’s industry experts to develop new joint offerings that will allow new capabilities and functionalities on top of SAP’s current solutions to the utilities industry.

“SAP’s utilities customers are looking for intelligent solutions to help them succeed in delivering safe, reliable and sustainable energy products and services,” said Peter Maier, 51����president of industries and customer advisory. “This cohort of early-stage startups will help us connect our customers with the most cutting-edge solutions from around the world and enable them to rapidly respond to new business requirements.”

This cohort will collaborate with 51����longtime customers E.ON Innovation, part of Germany-based E.ON SE, and Israel Electric Corp. (IEC). The collaboration aims to identify breakthrough technologies, providing E.ON Innovation and IEC opportunities to be beta sites for pilots of the selected startups.

The following startups are participating in :

• offers state-of-the-art artificial intelligence software solutions that allow the end user to predict, optimize and trade energy.
• enables the renewable grid of the future to deliver safe and reliable electricity.
• offers a scalable end-to-end Internet of Things–enabling solution, building a seamless experience journey from device to cloud.
• delivers a platform for utilities to gain powerful energy insights and run value-added services using machine learning algorithms on smart meter data.
• provides digital value-added services to private and commercial “prosumers” with an operating system to monitor and control distributed energy devices.
• provides the operating system for postsubsidy renewable energy sales.
• ’s AI-driven digital asset management system automates and optimizes solar photovoltaic plants.

To learn more about SAP.iO and how 51����is helping innovators inside and outside of 51����build products, find customers and change industries, visit .

Visit the . Follow 51����on Twitter at .

Media Contacts:
Anke Otto-Jungkind, +1 (650) 796-6478, anke.otto-jungkind@sap.com, PT
Lesa Beber, +1 (650) 390-1629, lesa.beber@sap.com, PT
51����Press Room; press@sap.com

Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “expect,” “forecast,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “project,” “predict,” “should” and “will” and similar expressions as they relate to 51����are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. 51����undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP’s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP’s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including SAP’s most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
© 2020 51����SE. All rights reserved.
51����and other 51����products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of 51����SE in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices.

Amid the uncertainty and challenges created by the pandemic, SDG&E has taken many actions to help protect customers and employees, such as providing payment arrangements for customers in need and adding extra precautions for employees in the field.

Compassion Counts

“Our biggest concern is staying connected with customers and employees in the new world of working from home,” says Laura Atkinson, director of the Customer Information Systems Program at SDG&E. “We are using technology to stay connected, but that does not replace personal engagement.”

Atkinson finds people are much more compassionate and understanding during the crisis. Raising two girls as a single mother, surviving cancer, and having a demanding career, she knows how important it is to prioritize what needs to be accomplished — both professionally and personally. “It’s important to give back to others,” she says, referring to her management style. “I talk to my team a lot about balancing their work and home lives.

She goes on to explain that in the past, the office was mostly a nine-to-five operation. At the start of the crisis, the company asked 2,400 employees to work from home and implemented additional measures to keep field staff safe.

“We’ve gone through a big shift since then,” she explains. “Previously, the office was where you went to get work done. Now, we’re highly focused on outcomes and individual employee work flexibility. We have been able to demonstrate how to accomplish our objectives, regardless of physical location.”

These are big changes in the world of utilities, an industry undergoing rapid transformation. Faced with competition from non-traditional energy suppliers, utility companies must address climate change goals, reduce emissions, and support smart city programs as they seek to create value for their customers, communities, and shareholders.

Principles for Transformation

For the last three-and-half years, Atkinson and her team have been busy replacing SDG&E’s 25-year-old customer information system with 51����software. The goals include streamlining business processes, optimizing customer engagement, increasing regulatory responsiveness, and implementing a cloud-based platform for future innovation.

“The first step was to get the entire company to embrace the guiding principles for change,” says Atkinson, who believes that embracing change is key to successfully transform from being a utilities company to becoming an energy service company.

The . First and foremost is customer focus: SDG&E must serve its 3.6 million customers better, faster, and with greater agility. Second is empowerment, because Atkinson’s project team of 400 must make decisions and move at a quicker pace. Third, the team should implement best practices and focus on outcomes. And the fourth principle is “buy over build.”

“Configuring standard 51����functionality is more sustainable than customization,” says the IT expert.

Regardless of the crisis, SDG&E’s transformation will set it apart from most utility companies that operate on a brick-and-mortar philosophy. Previously, employees got their information from bulletin boards. That is no longer the case as work processes are more automated. Digitization also provides greater visibility through the use of dashboards that feed data to all stakeholders, providing a real-time view of the company’s operations.

It is not all work and no play at SDG&E. The team was quick to pivot and adapt to operating in the virtual world. Atkinson says that leaders at all levels within the organization are making a point to reach out directly to individuals to ask how they are doing in these uncertain times, and to help ensure people understand that it is okay to take a break and have some downtime. The team has incorporated fun, light-hearted activities to keep people connected, such as hosting bingo games, virtual happy hours, a drive-by pizza party, and playing Family Feud.

Atkinson is keen on teaching the next generation about the benefits of technology. “We’re living in interesting times,” she says. “We need to listen more carefully in the virtual world, where we can’t always pick up on nuances like body language.”

Her advice to women on a career path in technology is to set priorities, balance personal and professional goals, and learn to say no to certain things. One of her own takeaways from the crisis is the need for a shift in mindset. For example, she questions whether people really need to be physically in the office: “We need to challenge our own measurements. With a greater focus on outcomes, we need to measure the work itself. It’s how you get it done that counts.”

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Also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones can deliver literal birds-eye views of potential problems – encroaching vegetation, damaged equipment, nearby hazards – when there is still plenty of time to fix things.

This year, during the COVID-19 pandemic, drones can also help keep people safe, going into the field to gather data while human experts stay safely inside and receive high-quality data for better business decisions.

“Drones can quickly and efficiently gather information from power poles across vast expanses of the landscape,” said Ron Gray, a senior solution engineer at SAP. “With analytical insights on where the biggest potential hazards are, electric companies can develop a prioritized schedule of inspections and maintenance plans, including outage management timeframes. This would also help utilities correct missing or inaccurate information on equipment with fact-based mapping data and prove compliance with regulatory reporting mandates.”

Humans Plus Machines Solve Data Management Problem

One co-innovation example from uses drones to collect real-time image data from electric equipment in the field. Deep learning algorithms in the Intel Insights Platform identify and prioritize high-risk areas from the images captured by drones across the poles, wiring, transformers, and other equipment that carries electricity across transmission and distribution lines. Experts at the utility could then log into the cloud system for a top-down view of the findings, which are color-coded by equipment type and risk level.

For example, someone could see plastic debris that needs clearing from the top of wires, if a wooden pole is rotted, or that there is a tank located much too close to the pole. Once the inspection analysis is complete, the results are pushed to in 51����S/4HANA. This triggers notifications that are easily bundled into field work orders using the mobile app to address anything that requires attention. None of this automation negates demand for human judgment.

“While AI-based algorithms can recognize images indicating vegetation encroachment, the human component comes in to review and confirm or deny the analysis,” said Mark Christian, a business development professional at Intel Geospatial. “An arborist has the expertise to assess the health of a tree or if that species is protected under environmental laws. A tree may need trimming, but if it’s dead or dying, it could require removal to prevent it from falling and causing more damage.”

Maintenance Made Easy

Having drones collect data that is analyzed in a cloud platform and connects back to daily business processes like equipment inspection, scheduling, and maintenance could well be the future of automated wildfire risk mitigation.

“Utilities could section thousands of square miles into ‘inspection corridors’ for drone flights, measuring risk by various parameters, such as areas that are at greater risk for fires, equipment types and age, and weather conditions,” Gray said. “Capturing this information within plant maintenance in 51����S/4HANA, which also has a geographical-enabled framework, would allow utilities to define maintenance plan areas and send work orders by exact location for each piece of equipment. Utilities could document that an inspection took place, and if corrective action was required.”

Data Insights Drive Cost-Efficient Operations

Essentially functioning as early warning indicators, the image-based data and analysis of equipment in the field would not necessarily be caught by human inspectors on the ground, or even someone venturing skyward in a bucket truck. It is also about potential cost-savings for utility providers operating equipment in an increasingly tough economy.

“Utilities would see immediate value from having access to visual images of poles and wires that document exactly what’s going on in hard-to-reach terrains and outdoor environments,” Christian said. “They could reduce unnecessary truck rolls to conduct visual inspections and verify installations, which is a key metric in the industry.”

Intelligent Enterprise in Action

Many industries are hitting the accelerator on technologies that bring substantive returns on investment (ROIs), allowing more people to work remotely and with greater intelligence and efficiencies. For utilities, the partnership between 51����and Intel is designed to bring the best innovations from both companies – especially during these challenging times.

“Utilities face huge pressure to meet changing consumer power needs, as well as sustainable energy demands in an increasingly volatile environment that includes extreme weather and the pandemic,” said Brian Kadien, general manager of the 51����Strategic Partnership with Intel.

Vishal Sanghvi, marketing director of 51����programs at Intel, added that “Intel’s technology collects and analyzes information directly from the field, while 51����brings the agility of real-time data across connected business processes. The Intel and 51����partnership helps unlock the potential of data. This is the Intelligent Enterprise in action, helping utility employees in maintenance, capital project improvements, the environment, and vegetation management make important business decisions to keep the lights on.”

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Most executives are aware that generic business software creates a foundation that tackles the basics of running a business during constant business change, economic uncertainty, and market volatility. But 51����customers also understand the value of extending their digital strategies with��. They are tailoring processes and codifying reporting and analytics to become more efficient, cost-effective, and compliant in terms of employee and customer expectations.

Below is a snapshot of how 51����Solution Extensions cater to the unique needs of specific industries and subindustries.

Wholesale Distribution: Unleashing the Potential of Negotiations

Negotiating better agreements is critical for wholesale distributors when driving savings, increasing profitability and margins, and fostering customer and supplier relationships. But it’s still an intricate function of various partners, extensive information, and complex calculations.

With a comprehensive solution such as the��, distributors can increase control of the negotiation lifecycle, simplify processes, and gain insights into possible enhancements for profitability. Real-time simulation and analysis of the impact of any actively negotiated deal give distributors the visibility to strike an agreement that protects their profitability, lowering the cost of goods sold through a streamlined, closed-loop process.

Fashion Retail: Redefining the Purpose of Brick-and-Mortar Stores

For fashion retailers, the new norm of mask wearing, social distancing, and controlling the number of employees and consumers in one location is particularly challenging, considering their high-touch nature. However, with the right business model, they may create a mobile-responsive, integrated service that delivers a consistent, reliable, and safe digital experience across all devices and channels.

For instance, available on premise or through the cloud, the����allows retailers to support an authentically omnichannel consumer experience. The solution extension enables our customers to control their worldwide outlets centrally. With scanners, scales, kiosks, vending machines, and other peripherals and storefronts, fashion retailers can acquire the real-time visibility and transactional capabilities to provide a seamless and personalized shopping experience.

To succeed with this omnichannel retail model, fashion brands deliver a diverse, dynamic array of products that consumers want through��. It replaces spreadsheets and e-mails to deliver a single version of correct and complete master data to all users – leading to lower costs, informed decision-making, and timely response to market change.

Furthermore, no matter how sophisticated the brick-and-mortar model for retail becomes, fashion brands still need to mitigate an ever-present risk: revenue loss. �ճ������facilitates an advanced approach to distinguishing potentially fraudulent activities from irregularities, such as business process issues, gaps in employee training, or cases of deception. In return, our customers are eliminating time-consuming and error-prone manual reporting methods and empowering their stakeholders to understand anomalous data better to control and prevent loss on their own.

Agribusiness: Widening Slim Margins with Insight and Efficiency

Agriculture’s economic fragility is a concern across the industry. For years, weather disasters, a trade war, and commodity pricing below production costs have placed tremendous stress across the value chain. And with today’s fluctuating demand across all forms of grocery and food services, agricultural futures are becoming more uncertain.

Although the same stress is felt across the entire industry, virtually every category of farming is governed by distinct regulations and best practices when responding to dynamic market shifts. The needs and requirements of running a dairy farm, for example, are vastly different from those of a grower running an orchard.

51����understands that reality and offers four unique solution extensions to aid customers as they address issues that are vital to their long-term continuity:

: Designed for farm management operations, the application facilitates everything from planning and planting to growing and harvesting. It addresses the daily need for information and visibility among field managers, supervisors, and workers while delivering crucial analytics to senior executives.

: This integrated solution helps manage complex processes and relationships between buyers and growers of perishable products, such as fruits and vegetables. 51����Grower Management for Perishables establishes a contract setup and a wide array of farming, logistics, and accounting services that assist all players in efficiently and profitably fulfilling commitments.

: The application streamlines and optimizes processes, from raw milk reception to processing finished products. Dairy farmers can use the technology to streamline operations, turn real-time data into revealing insights, and improve performance and competitiveness.

: With data-driven technology embedded, this application enables meat, poultry, or fish businesses to simplify the storage, processing, and flow of information and insight across the organization. The entire meat or fish value chain can oversee food-processing functions in ways that help ensure quality products are delivered to store shelves to meet the needs of every consumer that wants them.

Capital-Intensive Industries: Creating Lasting Value for Customers and the World

Capital-intensive industry segments – such as utilities, oil and gas, manufacturing, mill products, mining, transportation, chemicals, engineering, and construction – are taking on a new life of their own as they help create livable homes, towns, and cities running on sustainable energy. Delivering on this promise requires intelligent solutions for energy generation; storage, water, and waste management; and energy grids efficient enough to keep up with fluctuating demand and inspire consumers to generate their own power.

51����customers are realizing this goal by tapping into accurate, up-to-the-minute transactional data to manage complex assets, maximize uptime, and improve responsiveness to changing circumstances. �ճ������unifies and streamlines data governance to improve maintenance planning, reduce asset downtime, increase productivity and profits, and support compliance and safety. A smooth exchange of trusted master data is also facilitated with business partners through mobile apps and devices, across cloud and on-premise applications and services.

To keep consumers engaged in this vision of a more sustainable world, utilities are no longer merely providing an online presence with basic account functions and a call center. They are interacting with consumers on the Web and through mobile apps by using the��. The tool provides a user-friendly engagement platform with self-service capabilities that serve as a starting template for intuitive, multichannel experiences.

Meanwhile, from an operational perspective, connecting asset lifecycle management with digital technology fosters enterprise collaboration and data-driven decision-making. Controlling engineering information, work processes, and risk allows firms to improve efficiency and time to production for their capital projects and operations.

A����opens the door to a more intelligent approach to capital projects and operations. The add-on integrates structured engineering data with unstructured information, including computer-aided design drawings, models, technical specifications, user manuals, maintenance records, and service contracts. Plus, it gives businesses the control they need to handle engineering documents, work processes, and risk across the distributed enterprise, which enhances decision-making and agility while reducing costs.

The solution extension add-on for 51����Extended ECM also supports role-specific workspaces to increase operational efficiency with aggregated content, data, people, and tasks related to a common business function, project, or use case. Content is seamlessly available to employees who need it, when they need it and governed automatically and transparently according to current policies.

Media and Entertainment: Unifying Rights and Royalties with Intelligence and Clarity

The use of disconnected spreadsheets, generic applications, and bolt-on technologies can create a dangerous landscape when competing against massive global players and emerging competitors – most of whom are offering content. Content distributors need a single point of truth to control their rights and royalties while gaining the trust of their consumers and network of creators, licensors, and publishers.

Consider the occasion when distributors negotiate their right to exploit new content. A core of��rights and royalty intelligence and clarity, supported by��, enables distributors to��prove their financial viability, platform strength, and audience growth. The solution extension consolidates multiple sources of truth to just one enterprise system to create legal-approved contracts, acquire rights, move content to production, and trigger royalty payments based on a schedule.

Impactful Digital Transformation Is Within Reach for Your Business

This series has covered how����can help companies address unique needs across functional areas and distinct industry requirements. 51����customers embrace our portfolio of solution extensions to simplify IT complexities while reducing their risk, accelerating business change, and futureproofing their digital investments.

Learn more about 51����Solution Extensions at .

51����and energy supplier E.ON plan to build a new process and technology platform for E.ON’s network operations. Together, the two strong partners intend to set a new standard in Germany’s power grid business. E.ON aims to use cloud solutions from 51����(51����S/4HANA) to make core processes around billing and information exchange more efficient and consistent across its corporate group. That way, E.ON Group’s energy suppliers, grid operators and metering point operators will be able to share information faster, more accurately and more easily. Processes will be standardized, with the various energy billing and data exchange systems at E.ON’s regional units moving to the new platform. Having consistent data will enable the company to deploy standard solutions, follow best practices and reduce the cost of developing custom software. E.ON’s network customers stand to benefit as well. Leaner, standardized processes will enable the company to respond even faster and more efficiently to customer requests.

The decision for the new technology was triggered by the integration of energy company Innogy SE into the E.ON Group. E.ON’s grid business plan is to establish standard billing processes and IT systems across its entities. The first benefits from the project – more efficient processes – are expected as early as mid-2022. Implementing innovative cloud solutions should save the group more than 40 percent in costs long term.

With grid operations as part of its business, E.ON has to meet regulations set by Germany’s Federal Network Agency, the Bundesnetzagentur. The partnership with 51����and the capabilities offered by the new, open, modular, stable platform will ease compliance with new regulatory requirements, such as standard data exchange formats. In addition, business processes running on 51����Cloud Platform can be extended easily. Because the platform can continually evolve, it offers scope for innovation as well.

“Partnering with 51����enables us to redesign processes and structures, especially following our acquisition of Innogy,” says Thomas König, board member in charge of energy networks, E.ON SE. “This project will set a new standard in the market. Having maximum automation and standardization on the new platform will make our processes much more efficient.”

“The close partnership with E.ON is not only a powerful example of how technology can simplify business decision-making, bring about new business models and generate sustainable value,” says Christian Klein, CEO, 51����SE. “Today’s decision is also a strong commitment to industry cloud solutions from 51����and demonstrates that, when it comes to digital transformation, we are our customers’ partner of choice.”

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About E.ON

E.ON SE is an international investor-owned energy company, which focuses on energy networks and customer solutions. As one of Europe’s largest energy companies, E.ON plays a leading role in shaping a clean, digital, decentralized world of energy. To this end, more than 75,000 employees develop and sell products and solutions for private, commercial and industrial customers. Around 50 million customers purchase electricity, gas, digital products or solutions for electric mobility, energy efficiency and climate protection from E.ON. E.ON is headquartered in Essen, Germany. For more information, please visit .

About SAP

SAP’s strategy is to help every business run as an intelligent enterprise. As the market leader in enterprise application software, we help companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: 77% of the world’s transaction revenue touches an 51����system. Our machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced analytics technologies help turn customers’ businesses into intelligent enterprises. 51����helps give people and organizations deep business insight and fosters collaboration that helps them stay ahead of their competition. We simplify technology for companies so they can consume our software the way they want – without disruption. Our end-to-end suite of applications and services enables business and public customers across 25 industries globally to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and make a difference. With a global network of customers, partners, employees, and thought leaders, 51����helps the world run better and improve people’s lives. For more information, visit .

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For customers interested in learning more about 51����products:
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