Towards a digital and fully integrated energy company

The story of Vincent Tuk

‘Eneco’s goal is to be climate-neutral by 2035. To achieve this, we are committed to accelerating the digital transformation. Think of it as a large orchestra with a wide range of musicians: digital is the conductor who ensures that everyone plays together in perfect harmony.’ We are talking to Vincent Tuk, Chief Digital Officer at Eneco, about the digital transition in the energy world, how it should be organised and what the impact is.

Vincent says, ‘I am excited about my new role as Chief Digital Officer, which I started in September 2022. I was a business owner for many years, both as a consultant in the energy transition and a founder of a high-tech data science platform. I strongly believe in Eneco’s mission. It’s our role to offer the best solutions to our customers and partners and move towards climate neutrality together. Data and digital solutions play a crucial role in this. At Eneco, you see a unique combination of ambition, scale, assets and digital knowledge, and we can make a real impact. And that’s exactly what I’m aiming for!’

Eneco is transforming into the energy company of tomorrow

Vision

‘Our digital vision is based on building digital technology assets,’ Vincent continues. ‘Virtual power plants are important here. After all, with the growth of new energy sources, like wind farms and solar farms, but also heat pumps and energy storage in cars and batteries, the energy market is becoming increasingly complex. Our virtual power plant, or “VPP”, connects and manages a broad portfolio of energy sources, including those of third parties. The VPP enables us to respond in real time and adjust our connected capacity both to the fluctuating power demand and the energy supply that varies based on the presence of sun and wind. These digital solutions enable us to make smarter use of the flexible capacity of wind or solar farms and batteries. After all, balancing supply and demand is more important than ever due to the increasing complexity.’

*“We are digitising hundreds of thousands of assets for tens of thousands of customers.”*
Vincent Tuk

Doubling the installed capacity

In the coming years, Eneco is strategically aiming to double its sustainable installed capacity, which will have a major impact on the electricity transmission and distribution network. Vincent explains, ‘Grid balancing in particular becomes more challenging when more energy is coming from renewable sources. The VPP is used to balance transmission and distribution grids without having to generate additional power from fossil fuels. So, this way the VPP offers us a powerful tool to further develop our growing portfolio of controllable sustainable energy solutions. That gives us a significant boost in achieving our sustainability goals.’

Integrated energy company

Talent and empowered working

‘But technology alone is not enough,’ Vincent continues. ‘Without talent and the best digital experts we will not make it. But that is the beauty of Eneco: we are really able to attract digital talent to bring about our digital transition. Our mission appeals to young, but also experienced IT specialists such as data scientists, data developers and data architects. Add to this our market knowledge and specific know-how of traders; with all of this we can really add value to the energy supply chain. This is only possible by working together intensively as a team and empowering this team. Making mistakes is allowed, as long as you learn from them quickly. At Eneco, over 400 IT specialists are working on our digital transition, some 200 in the new CDO organisation and more than 35 in our VPP team. So, our working method is fully integrated: we have no silos.’

Generating new digital value propositions.

Breakthrough acceleration

‘You can safely say that, as Eneco, we are breaking new ground by using a wide range of market, weather and asset data to promote trade and control energy generation and storage,’ Vincent continues. ‘The models and approaches we develop create opportunities for new customer propositions that help accelerate the energy transition. After all, we are going through a huge transition together with our customers.’

‘Suppliers and customers will soon treat each other differently. These are developing into closer relationships. The more we look at new products and services together with the customer, the more we become part of their vision and story. Together with them we look at their customer journey. How can energy efficiency be increased and how can emissions and costs be cut? When is the right time to purchase, store or feed energy back into the grid? It’s about optimum harmonisation in the grid.’

Partnerships

‘The challenge for this digital transformation is how to set up partnerships with customers in a scalable way,’ says Vincent. ‘After all, it is about digitising hundreds of thousands of assets for tens of thousands of customers. In our digital platforms, which are characterised by a cloud-based IT architecture, we can predict the “energy behaviour”, as it were, within certain customer profiles. This makes it clear when it is cheaper for companies to purchase or produce energy. This way customers can continuously optimise their energy balance. Based on that specific knowledge, we bring our propositions to the market, we can accelerate the energy transition, and we achieve the climate objectives. Privacy and security are key words here. We therefore pay a lot of attention to this. Obviously, we approach the corporate market very differently from the consumer market. For this we cultivate a more Apple-like approach, with seamless customer journeys and optimum ease of use for the consumer.’

Transforming the role of energy supplier

Vincent concludes, ‘With this approach, in which Eneco is investing substantially, we want to transform the role of energy supplier. We want to market our new, digital value proposition broadly in the market, and so we collaborate openly and transparently with other market parties, including other energy companies. This way we can really make an impact together. With our digital vision and approach, we can then maximise the value from their assets for everyone in the energy supply chain. This is how we are transforming into the energy company of tomorrow.’

Key figures

Total number of IT specialists at Eneco of which: