Digitalisation for the energy transition and sustainable energy economy

Know-how

Our participations in a digitally characterised world

Digitalisation is neither science nor fiction but it has been daily routine for a long time already. But as relates to the energy transition, it is still in the starting phase in many areas. Time to change this.

START Digitalisation

The majority of the population has long become used to the conveniences of digital applications. Whether it is shopping from your couch, streaming your favourite series or accessing millions of songs with your smart speaker – digital global networking makes it possible. Much less frequently used and even less well-known are the possibilities offered for the energy industry by digitalisation. At the same time, it takes a key position in the fight against the consequences of climate change among other issues.

Up until a few years ago, the situation seemed to be clear and manageable: power plants generate electricity, consumers use it according to their requirements. But at the latest since the liberalisation of the electricity market and the rise of renewable energies, this principle has fundamentally changed. The idea of a decentralised grid can finally also be found in the energy sector by now. While wind energy plants and photovoltaics systems are distributed over large geographic areas, representing a large number of different sources of electricity, the number of producers has increased at the same time. This has resulted in higher complexity that must be managed.

Smart home, smart business

A particularly challenging change in the course of digitalisation are blurred boundaries. While it could be clearly distinguished between the producer and consumer so far, this is not so easily done today anymore. More frequently, the time of examination determines who is in what position. To take this circumstance into account, reference is increasingly made to “prosumers.” But to continue keeping the grids stable, all involved have to adhere to the rules that define the respective modes of action and conduct.

A modular smart home can already serve to demonstrate that this is not a simple task in all cases. A personal electrical car is charged on its own power box, light and heating are controlled conveniently via an app, photovoltaics systems generate a part of the required electricity. If there is a production surplus, it will be fed into the grid against a fee. This is a convenient solution from the consumer’s perspective, which additionally makes a decisive contribution to climate protection. But for all of this to work flawlessly, large volumes of data must be exchanged in the background – which is a point often underrepresented in the debate about the energy transition. Without the smart and coordinated feed-in of renewable energies, the decentralised electricity generation runs the risk of becoming an interference in grid stability.

Successful implementation is a matter of the tools

Energy companies must know how to handle the changed conditions. Here, too, digital applications are the means of choice. Nonetheless, it presents by far greater challenges for digitalisation than those found in the private customer segment. This is because the systems that are used must not only function fault-free from an economic and regulatory perspective but they must also be maintained. However, for example, keeping a customer portal with real time data up to date and in the state of the art is elaborate. Thus, initially the following question is presented in principle: Developing a business process as a service or software internally? At the same time, answers must also be found to the questions below:

– How are tools built?

– Which technologies are relevant?

– How can different existing systems be interconnected?

– How high maintenance is the relevant tool and how often does its contents have to be updated?

„Microservices are on the rise for intelligent and fully automated control of energy processes.“

Christoph Gardlo | COO & Founder ESFORIN

Complex but open

Based on the complexity, the trend is moving toward several specialists offering joint solutions in collaborations. These micro services can be integrated into existing systems in the same way as in a “one-closed shop.” This is relevant in particular because they are frequently grown organically and ideally require merely that functions are added. Furthermore, service providers can relieve utility companies by eliminating their need to structure or maintain expensive IT infrastructure to automate and digitalise processes. For example, IT24/7 Solutions GmbH, a subsidiary of ESFORIN, offers a customer contract and billing system with fully integrated sub-ledger accounting and payment transactions mapping.

In the future, further digital applications will become established in the energy industry. There is no doubt here that remote work will also continue to be relevant even after the end of the pandemic. In combination with the cloud-based applications, solutions can be created this way, by means of which the power grids can also be controlled safely outside of the companies’ offices. What sometimes still sounds like science fiction is possible today already and a start has already been made.

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Know-how

Our contribution to sustainable energy economy

We make a decisive contribution by our service to the indisputably urgently necessary energy transition. This comes in light of the urgency that is of the essence to be able to still remotely reach the goals of the Paris Climate Accord.

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