In October 2025, we gathered for the third time for our annual exnaton Conference: “NextGen Utilities: AI, P2P Energy, and DSM Future”.
The event brought together utilities, grid operators, and energy industry innovators from across the energy sector to tackle one big question:
How will AI and digital solutions transform the energy world of tomorrow?
Across three sessions, we explored the building blocks of the next-generation energy system — from AI-driven operations and energy sharing to smart tariffs and flexibility solutions.
One message came through loud and clear: the future of energy unfolding — intelligent, decentralized, and participatory.
This article marks the beginning of a three-part series highlighting the key takeaways from the conference, diving into how AI, community energy models, and flexible tariffs are reshaping Europe’s energy sector.
For decades, the energy system has followed a one-way logic — electricity flowing from a few producers to many consumers. Today, however, digitalization and data are turning that model upside down.
AI is already helping detect billing anomalies, forecast consumption patterns, and deliver more personalized customer experiences. As exnaton’s CEO Liliane Ableitner pointed out, the market is now ready for decentralized technologies.
Private households are increasingly equipped with solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles, and they expect a new kind of customer experience.
“Households won’t think in terms of fuel costs anymore,” she noted. “They’ll think in terms of electricity costs — and that changes the way we engage with customers entirely.”
Thanks to smart meters, data analytics, and user-friendly digital platforms, utilities and communities can now:
The outcome is a more flexible, transparent, and customer-centric energy system — in which everyone can participate.
Our first session, “AI is the gamechanger: How utilities will operate billing and user experience 10 years from now” explored how artificial intelligence is reshaping the core of utility operations.
AI is already being used to detect billing anomalies, forecast consumption patterns, and deliver more personalized customer experiences. But as Liliane emphasized, the real breakthrough lies in turning complexity into simplicity — making energy transparent, interactive, and tailored to each user.
This is what exnaton’s intelligence platform for new energy is designed to do, built around four pillars:
By combining these pillars, utilities can evolve from reactive operators to data-driven energy service providers — prepared to shape in the next-generation energy market.
If AI provides the intelligence, energy sharing brings participation.
In our session “Energy sharing, Peer-to‑Peer Energy Trading & Energy Communities”, Thies Stillahn, Senior Sales Manager at exnaton together with Lea Zwickl and Philip Payer (Burgenland Energie), as well as Benedikt Herbert, Julian Bott (Die Sonnerei, MVV Energie AG), explored how energy communities and peer-to-peer electricity trading empower citizens, businesses, and municipalities to actively shape the energy market.
With negative electricity prices on the rise and feed-in rates declining, local energy trading offers a stable, community-based solution. Producers can sell excess solar power locally, consumers pay lower costs, and the grid benefits from simultaneous local generation and consumption.
At the same time, energy retailers and community operators can evolve from being simple energy suppliers to becoming facilitators of local energy communities — offering additional services such as billing the community, leveraging local flexibility from excess generation, and unlocking the upselling potential of renewable assets.
Austria and Switzerland are leading the way with strong regulatory frameworks and widespread smart meter adoption, while Germany’s upcoming EnWG reform is set to create similar opportunities.
As Thies noted, “Energy sharing turns prosumers into market players — and communities into active contributors to the energy transition.”
The final session, “Pricing structures for electricity to incentivize DSM – smart to address the duck curve” led by Liliane Ableitner, Fabian Stocker, Business Development Lead at exnaton and Seraphine Wagner (Narurstrom), demonstrated how smart pricing ties everything together.
By using dynamic tariffs and automated demand-side management (DSM), electricity consumption can shift to moments of abundant renewable generation — improving grid stability and lowering costs for everyone.
Products like Naturstrom’s dynamic tariff flexible tariffs demonstrate that dynamic pricing isn’t just theoretical — it’s already helping utilities and customers make renewable integration profitable and scalable.
“We won’t achieve the energy transition with static energy prices,” Liliane emphasized. “We need smart, adaptive systems that reward flexibility — and only then can households and businesses truly participate.”
Across all sessions, one theme was clear: the future of energy will be digital, decentralized, and flexible.
Together, these pillars form a connected ecosystem — a dynamic learning energy system built on collaboration, transparency, and participation.
At exnaton, our mission is to bring this vision to life.
Our Energy Intelligence Platform integrates seamlessly with utilities’ existing ERP and CRM systems — from SAP to Powercloud — enabling them to innovate without complexity or disruption.
We empower energy providers to:
Today, more than 50 utilities across Europe — including TotalEnergies, Volkswagen Elli, E.ON brands eprimo and Bayernwerk, Burgenland Energie, and KELAG — trust our platform to bring flexibility, transparency, and innovation to the new energy system.
The transition to the next-generation energy system is not a distant goal — it’s happening now.
With the right technology and partnerships, utilities can lead this transformation — building a system that is smart, fair, and human-centered.
Ready to explore how exnaton can help your organization shape the energy system of tomorrow? Get in touch with our team.
