Fortum Deploys Automatic Meter Management Across 860,000 Customers in Sweden

The team was able to do an excellent job in difficult circumstances. We exceeded Fortum’s expectations in delivering a high risk and complex transition on time. Since the transition, the team worked month on month to deal with the operational backlogs inherited from the previous service provider. Performance against the Service Level Agreements has been the best ever. As a consequence, Fortum reported the lowest ever Grid / Settlement losses, which has a direct impact on its bottom line performance. Ari Koponen, Fortum Vice President, Distribution

The Situation

Fortum is a leading utilities company focusing on the Nordic countries, Russia and the Baltic Rim area. In Sweden, the Fortum group distributes electricity to approximately 860,000 customers. When the Swedish Electricity Act mandated that all electricity consumption meters be read on a monthly basis, Fortum approached an IT services provider for automatic meter management (AMM) services. Following the IT services provider’s liquidation, the company awarded the contract to Capgemini. Capgemini had to render its services facing varying climate, geographic, and demographic characteristics as well as working on multiple technology and process solutions.

The Solution

Based on the company’s proprietary Managed Business Services usage-based pricing model, Capgemini operates a solution that meets Fortum’s challenging requirements. The service includes regular and scheduled meter reading, network operation services, field services, service desk, management reporting, data center hosting and application management. Capgemini is also responsible for managing sub-contractors which includes telecommunication, software and field services providers as well as meter manufacturers. The delivery is based on Capgemini’s global delivery, the Rightshore® approach, achieving the right balance of the best talent from multiple locations, with services provided from countries including Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland and India.

The Result

Fortum has been able to record a high number of monthly meter reads with accuracy, thereby ensuring satisfaction of the company’s customers as well as accomplishment of business goals. The company also enjoys benefits like: 

• accurate electricity consumption forecasting
• reduction in grid loss
• maximizing revenues based on higher volume of reads
• stable IT infrastructure managed by Capgemini.