Governed grid and customer workflows for municipal and regional utilities, beside your billing system

For Stadtwerke and regional utilities that run grid, supply, metering, heat and water on one IT team: build connection request handling, §14a device processes, market-process clearing and compliance evidence as production software with review points, traceability and code ownership.

Modernise around IS-U, Schleupen, Wilken, S/4HANA Utilities, GIS and your market communication system while the migration runs. Nothing we build lands in your billing system's change backlog.

Where it runs

Nuclicore-managed single tenant on Hetzner in Germany or Azure in the EU, or your own cloud (BYOC) and on-premise on Enterprise.

What it connects to

Billing and CRM (SAP IS-U and S/4HANA Utilities, Schleupen, Wilken, powercloud and others), GIS, meter data management and your market communication system via APIs, exports and database views.

What we do not touch

Grid control systems, SCADA, smart meter gateways and the market messages themselves. Your control room and your MaKo system stay as they are.

Who owns the code

You do. Each app is a standard React and Node repository with its own backend, running on a managed, encrypted Postgres database. Export it at any time, including for a public tender.

What utility teams evaluate first

These are the questions grid operations, the IT lead, the information security officer and the works council ask before a pilot gets a budget line.

Hosting in Germany

Nuclicore-managed on Hetzner in Germany or Azure in the EU, with BYOC or on-premise on Enterprise. No data leaves the EU unless you decide otherwise.

No access to grid control or OT

We do not connect to SCADA, grid control systems, RTUs or smart meter gateways. Apps consume exports and interfaces on the IT side that you approve.

Beside IS-U, not inside it

Workflows run as side-by-side applications against the billing system's interfaces. Your S/4HANA Utilities programme keeps its scope, its freeze and its cutover date.

Unbundling-safe, above and below the de minimis threshold

Informational unbundling applies even where legal unbundling does not. RBAC keeps grid data invisible to sales and sales data invisible to grid, and the separation is documented for your compliance officer.

Audit trail for regulators and auditors

Who raised, who reviewed, who approved, when, with what evidence. Exportable per case for regulator inquiries, KRITIS audits, internal audit and the supervisory board.

Evidence for NIS2 and KRITIS

Dependency scanning, secrets handling, CVE patching and a nightly ZAP scan run on every app. Release gates and logs give you documented technical measures for the applications you build.

Exit path for public procurement

Standard code, standard database, documented interfaces. The exit path is in place before the award, which is what your procurement rules ask for.

Built for how a municipal utility actually runs

Align scope, workflow ownership and governance per division, on one platform, with the separation the law requires.

Grid company (electricity and gas)

Supply and customer service

Metering point operation

Heat, water and further divisions

Why delivery models are changing for municipal utilities

The utilities that ship fastest keep the billing core clean, move exceptions out of mail and treat compliance as running software.

Common Reality

One IT team, six divisions, and the billing clock runs out in 2027

Mainstream maintenance for SAP IS-U on ECC ends in December 2027 and the migration to S/4HANA Utilities takes 18 to 36 months. Meanwhile the regulator changes market communication formats twice a year. Every business request outside the migration waits.

Common Reality

Connection requests arrive faster than the grid team can answer

PV, heat pumps, wallboxes and storage generate hundreds of connection requests per month even at a mid-sized utility. The law expects an answer within eight weeks, and the Netzpaket makes digital connection portals mandatory for every request type. Mail and spreadsheets do not scale to that.

Common Reality

Resilience is now a documented obligation

KRITIS-Dachgesetz has applied since March 2026, and the federal states can set lower thresholds that bring regional utilities into scope. NIS2 treats energy as an essential sector with 24-hour incident reporting. Both ask for evidence that can be produced on request, not for a binder.

What you can build across grid, customer, metering and compliance

Deliver governed software around your systems of record, with review points, traceability and code ownership.

Grid and connection

Connection request intake and 8-week tracking

One digital intake for generators, storage and consumers, completeness check, acknowledgement, review by the grid planner and a response with the deadline visible on every case.

Installer portal and commissioning

Registered installers submit commissioning records, protocols and photos; the grid team reviews and confirms; metering point operation is notified.

§14a controllable device registration

Register heat pumps, wallboxes and storage above the threshold, assign the control module, apply the grid fee reduction and keep the record per metering point.

Capacity information and reservation

Non-binding capacity information per grid area, reservation requests with expiry, and a decision record per capacity decision.

Customer and metering

Market-process clearing cases

Exceptions from the supplier switch, master data changes and meter readings land in one queue with the deadline, the owner and the fix, instead of in three mailboxes.

Guided change of tariff, eligibility check for dynamic tariffs based on the metering system, consent and confirmation with a record per contract.

Smart meter rollout appointments and device changes

Three-month notices, appointment booking, technician confirmation, device change record and the exception path when access fails.

Applications for municipal or utility funding programmes with document checks, eligibility rules, approval and payout record.

Compliance, heat and field

KRITIS risk analysis and resilience evidence

Structured risk analysis per critical asset, measures with owners and due dates, and the evidence file that can be produced for the authority or an on-site inspection.

NIS2 incident reporting workflow

Incident intake, classification, the 24-hour, 72-hour and final report steps with the responsible person on record and the submitted content archived.

Work permits and switching requests

Contractor and crew work permits, switching requests to the control room as a documented request, approvals with time windows and closure with evidence.

Heat planning data and heat network connection intake

Collect building and consumption data for municipal heat planning in a structured form, and handle heat network connection requests with the same intake, review and response pattern as grid requests.

Fits your systems of record

Most ROI comes from removing manual handoffs between grid planning, customer service, metering and compliance, and from connecting to the billing system with clear ownership of every interface.

We build governed workflows around billing, CRM, GIS, meter data management, document management and your market communication system. We read what these systems expose and write back through their supported interfaces. We do not generate or process market messages, and we do not touch grid control or smart meter gateways.

What we need from you

Integration patterns supported

Governed releases, stable production

Security and data controls for utilities

Each application runs its own backend, with a managed, encrypted Postgres per environment. Single-tenant infrastructure, BYOC and on-premise on Enterprise. Hosting in Germany or the EU by default.

RBAC, audit logs and monitoring keep access controlled per market role, division and function. Dependency scanning, secrets handling, CVE patching and a nightly ZAP scan run on every app, which gives you documented technical measures for NIS2 and for your ISMS. Your workspace content is not used to train models.

Security controls in practice

What a first pilot at a municipal utility looks like

We align on one approval-heavy workflow and deliver reviewable increments with clear governance.

Scope, acceptance criteria, architecture outline

Pick one workflow (for example connection request intake, §14a registration or market-process clearing). Define market role, approval matrix, the billing fields to read and the records to write back.

First working version in Preview

Forms, routing, deadlines, approvals and the read integration to your billing or GIS exports. Grid and customer service users click through and comment in the task.

Test environment with real roles and real data

Division and market-role permissions, SSO if applicable, write-back to billing or DMS, audit trail export. Your IT and your information security officer review interface and access concept.

Production release and handover

Approval, release to Production, redeploy of an earlier version verified. Documentation for IT, the compliance officer and the works council. Decision on the next workflow.

Success criteria examples

Energy & Utilities FAQ

Answers for grid operations, IT, information security and customer service at municipal and regional utilities.

What does "governed" mean for grid and customer workflows?

Work is organised into reviewable tasks with acceptance criteria. Releases move through Preview, Test and Production with approval, and any earlier release can be redeployed. Every case carries who raised, reviewed and approved it, with timestamps and evidence. That is the trail regulators, KRITIS auditors, internal audit and the supervisory board ask for.

We are migrating from IS-U to S/4HANA Utilities. Can we still build?

Yes, and that is the typical starting point. Apps run beside the billing system against stable interfaces, not inside it. Nothing lands in the migration backlog, and when the cutover switches interfaces the app is repointed, not rebuilt.

Do you connect to grid control, SCADA or smart meter gateways?

No. We do not touch the control room, RTUs, SCADA or the smart meter gateway infrastructure. Apps consume IT-side exports and interfaces you approve. Your control system security concept stays untouched.

Do you handle market communication?

No. Market messages are generated and processed by your market communication system. We build the workflows around it: intake, clearing of exceptions, deadlines, approvals and the record of what was decided. The message itself stays where it is.

We have fewer than 100,000 connected customers. Does unbundling still matter?

Below the de minimis threshold you are exempt from legal and operational unbundling, but informational and accounting unbundling still apply. We build one app per market role where separation is required, with RBAC that keeps grid data invisible to sales and vice versa. The access model is documented so your compliance officer can sign it off.

Does this help with KRITIS-Dachgesetz and NIS2?

In two ways. The apps themselves run with dependency scanning, secrets handling, CVE patching, nightly ZAP scans and audit logs, which gives you documented technical measures for the applications you build. And the risk analysis, resilience plan evidence and incident reporting workflows are among the first things utilities build.

Can it run on-premise or in your own tenant?

Yes. BYOC and on-premise deployment are available on Enterprise. The default is Nuclicore-managed single tenant on Hetzner in Germany or Azure in the EU.

We run electricity, gas, heat, water and a pool. One app or five?

One app, one codebase, one release, unless unbundling requires a separate app for a market role. Division-specific fields, approvers and thresholds are configuration, not code. Deployment labels let you release per division or legal entity.

We are subject to public procurement rules. How does code ownership work?

Each app is a standard React and Node repository with its own backend, running on a managed, encrypted Postgres database, exportable at any time. You own the code and the data, and the exit path exists before the award. That is usually what the procurement office needs to see.

Who maintains the app after the pilot?

Your team, through the same platform: describe the change, review the task, approve the release. Security patches to dependencies are applied by the platform. If you want to take the code and maintain it in-house, you can.

What is not a fit?

Grid control, real-time operations, market message processing, billing itself and anything on the OT network. Nuclicore builds the governed workflows around these systems, not the systems.

Move grid and customer workflows out of mail and into governed software.

Ship beside your billing migration, unbundling-safe, with audit trail and code you own.