Digital Transformation

Due to its public service mission in mainland Portugal, more than 6.3 M customers connected to the grid, ~2.800 employees, ~7.000 people in partners and continuous action for the management of the electricity grid and the new smart grids, E-REDES practices and depends on a significant digitalization of its processes and on a permanently distributed and collaborative operation. 

We have focused on increasing process efficiency and automating operations by incorporating new analytical and artificial intelligence tools into asset management and operational performance and integrating digital channels across the partner ecosystem.

How do we do it?

• Modernization of our electricity network metering assets. A particular focus is the replacement of 6 million electricity meters. This operation involves the installation of more than 4 million smart meters, i.e. approximately 70% of customers.
• Digitization of electricity network assets. This allows more than 65% of operations to be carried out remotely, with no need for physical presence for readings, cuts, re-connections, power changes, etc. This makes the process more convenient for the customer, significantly reducing the carbon footprint due to the elimination of travel. This process also enables the granular provision of essential consumption to support new services such as Self-consumption, Electric Mobility and Energy Efficiency.
• Use of process mining technologies as a basis for continuous improvement. This detects constraints and inefficiencies in the company's main operational processes. With standardized processes in support systems with continuous and bidirectional flows throughout the ecosystem, a degree of digitization of around 93% has been achieved.  
• End-to-end digitization of the entire journey of technicians (internal and external) in the field. This ranged from work planning, through route optimization and the requisition of protective equipment, to the execution of the intervention in the field with mobile equipment equipped with AR/VR services and remote specialized assistance. The Field Remote Support project won the Best Energy & Utilities Project award at the Portugal Digital Awards 2020 and the Exceed project (route optimization) won the Excellence in Field Services award at the Iberian Salesforce Summit 2022.
• Use of drones. Through this equipment, we were able to carry out inspections of lines and network infrastructures and the automatic processing of videos in the detection of faults and alerting of technicians (GridDrone).