E.ON Group companies in Romania invested, last year, 86 million lei in the digitalization and automation of infrastructure and in the expansion of self-service platforms dedicated to customers, and for this year the allocated budget is 102 million lei, an increase of 19%, the company announces. Additionally, last year 123 million lei were invested in the modernization of the electricity distribution network from EU funds, which also integrates digitalization and automation components, and for this year the amount invested will reach 155 million lei. By 2023, Delgaz Grid alone, part of the E.ON Romania group, has invested €177 million in natural gas and electricity networks.
The results of the investments are seen in the increase in the number of interactions and operations carried out through digital platforms and in the security of the networks, which led to the improvement of the customer experience. These are presented in the Sustainability Report for 2024, recently published by the company.
On the supply side, the dedicated customer platform, E.ON Myline, recorded the highest score in terms of customer satisfaction. Here, natural gas/electricity contracts can be easily managed or information about invoices, consumption or energy efficiency solutions can be found. The number of consumption points reached 2.37 million, with over 155,000 being registered during the past year. Self-reading and meter index transmission, which allow monitoring of consumption, are becoming increasingly popular among E.ON customers, with a 20% increase recorded on the platform, with the number of self-readings reaching 15 million at the end of last year.
The application was expanded in 2024 with useful functions for customers: payment of guarantees and invoices for solar panels, downloading compensations and access to PDF invoices, regardless of the billing option. Last year, the number of electronic invoices increased by almost 10%, reaching 1.93 million. At the same time, the number of payments in 2024, made through the platform, reached 9.9 million, an increase of almost 30% compared to the previous year.
On the distribution side, investments in the automation and digitalization of the distribution system mainly aimed at the integration of substations and transformation stations in SCADA (data acquisition and remote control), and of some remote-controlled equipment, as well as smart metering. At the same time, investments were directed towards the development of applications, digital solutions and optimizations of digital platforms that facilitate customer interaction with Delgaz Grid.
The network connection platform on delgaz.ro is an increasingly sought-after tool by customers for the advantages it offers: online submission of documents and tracking the status of the process, from the initiation of the request to the completion of the connection work to the natural gas/energy distribution system. Thus, in 2024 there was a 20% increase in the number of customers who used this service.
Last year, Delgaz Grid continued the process of installing smart meters, which allow remote monitoring of electricity consumption. At the end of the year, over half a million smart meters were already installed, of which 93,400 were installed in 2024.
One of the key initiatives is the implementation of the ADMS (Advanced Distribution Management System) system – an advanced platform that allows for the integrated monitoring and management of the electricity distribution network. Through this solution, numerous interventions can be carried out remotely, without teams traveling to the field, thus reducing intervention time.
SMARTdetect is a digital solution for detecting natural gas leaks and integrates artificial intelligence, multiple equipment and specialized IT applications to centralize and analyze in real time the data collected from the field. Following implementation, the length of the inspected network increased from 170,000 km in 2023 to 285,000 km in 2024, and the reduction in the time required for data analysis facilitated rapid interventions in the gas network.