- Purchase prices are passed on one-to-one
- Variable, dynamic and automated billing
- powercloud with a central role in the future IT system
(powercloud, Offenburg, Germany (05/11/2021) New business models are changing the energy market at a brisk pace. The motto is: away from rigid contracts and towards cheap energy solutions that offer maximum flexibility. A good example of this is e.optimum’s new and innovative offer for private customers. Germany’s largest independent energy purchasing association is thus contributing its bulk purchasing expertise to this market for the first time – with far-reaching benefits for consumers, who stand to profit from favorable wholesale prices for green electricity. They are being passed on one-to-one. On board as a key billing partner: powercloud. The SaaS platform enables the automatic and direct billing of variable and dynamic tariffs.
e.optimum has focused on commercial and industrial customers throughout Germany to date. The Offenburg-based specialists currently supply about 40,000 companies with over 6 billion kilowatt hours of electricity and natural gas per year in this segment. Management sees the move into the private market as logical: “By bundling our customers’ energy volumes, we can optimize the purchase prices at the energy trading hubs.” This approach of course also works in the private segment,” explains e.optimum board member Gert Nowotny. “Since it is particularly important for us to proceed in a completely transparent manner, we are also passing on the energy price for our green electricity and green gas without any risk or margin surcharges. We are charging only a very low basic fee. There is no tariff jungle with us, and customers can terminate the contracts with a month’s notice at any time.”
powercloud’s platform functionality with its automated processes in sales, handling and billing plays a central role in this. The SaaS solution is also future-proof in every respect – for example, with regard to the option of establishing a direct connection to digital meter systems, e-mobility solutions and existing inventory systems. “These requirements can be implemented with powercloud’s open interfaces. The platform will thus play a central role in our IT architecture going forward,” adds Boris Käser, board member at e.optimum. Management were impressed by the grown-up’s lean project planning and the transparent pay-per-use operating model. As is common for cloud services, the fee includes all services necessary for operation, as well as all future updates.
New business models, innovative products – also and especially considering this context, powercloud’s strategy of bundling the utilities’ energy industry infrastructure on a single platform pays off, as Marco Beicht, powercloud CEO, emphasizes. “Standardization, automation and the end-to-end approach ensure speed and simplicity when implementing our core solution and facilitate the development of new products. It is also very easy to customize the solution with extensions from the powerAppstore. The pre-integrated powerApps not only enable a quick start without much integration effort, but also the implementation of new business ideas in operation without any long projects.”
powercloud’s open way of working also impresses: any further developments are carried out together with customers and are subsequently available to all in the powercloud core. As a result, the standard solution grows and expensive in-house development becomes superfluous. The specialists, for example, gained smart meter experience in the international market at a very early stage. “Overall, we are currently seeing that dynamic and highly transparent tariff models such as that of e-optimum are clearly gaining in importance. We are often perceived as the enabler of the digital and ecological energy market of the future, as many conversations with future market participants from other industries have shown. We are nevertheless also ideally positioned for the inevitable transformation of European utilities,” concludes Tobias Hirning, Head of Sales Consulting at powercloud.
About e.optimum
Energy must remain both resource-saving and affordable – that’s the philosophy behind e.optimum. Since 2010, e.optimum has been a competent and reliable partner for companies when it comes to electricity and natural gas supply, digital electricity meters and metering point operation as well as cost-optimizing consulting. The company takes a future-oriented approach and thus also offers its customers charging stations for e-cars and e-bikes, direct marketing for electricity from renewable energy plants, PV solutions and battery storage systems. 40,000 companies already rely on e.optimum’s sustainable energy solutions – from which private consumers also stand to benefit going forward.
