Objective
In Germany, there are many more municipal utility companies providing various types of utilities and complementary services than in any other country. Some of them have managed to integrate as many as 7 different types of utilities and services in the one utility company.
They integrate all their services on one annual bill.
However, the liberalization of the energy market causes complex problems for these companies, as each area of the company develops differently in a deregulated market.
Billing of one division for services rendered by one utility company
Billing of several divisions for services rendered by one utility company
Billing of basic services from one division for services rendered by several utility companies
Billing of several divisions or several basic services from one division rendered by several utility companies
... In one system, and if desired on one bill!
Two of the billing types above have already been mentioned:
Standard billing: billing of one division for services rendered by one utility company.
Multi-division billing: billing of several divisions for services rendered by one utility company
Two more types of billing are included in the deregulated utilities industry:
Unbundled billing: billing of basic services from one division for services rendered by several utility companies
Convergent billing: billing of several divisions or several basic services from one division rendered by several utility companies
And an important condition: in one system and, if desired, on one bill!
Example of unbundled billing:
Two utilities, the home utility C1 and the competing utility Cx, both provide electricity services.
Both utilities agree that C1 has lost a customer to Cx, but that C1 will remain responsible for distribution and customer service for that customer.
Example: C1 is responsible for the billing process and creates a bill.
On the bill, the green row displays energy generation by Cx.
The two blue lines display distribution and customer service by C1.
In the gray line on the bill, there is an additional charge for the customer's contribution to standard assets. This charge is processed by another company, TP.
Result: This bill contains business volume for three different companies.
S/4HANA Utilities can use separate contracts and installations to model components of a contract that apply to a single division, but belong to different companies and in turn to different company codes.
The device is installed in one installation along with its technical data.
The device is installed in an additional installation, along with its rate data with another company code.
The contracts can now be billed individually or jointly in one bill.
Using the IDE component (Intercompany Data Exchange), you can create IDocs for the supplier when certain events occur (such as bill creation, incoming payments). This component can also process IDocs coming in from the suppliers.
Deregulated market scenarios can be defined as bill-ready, rate-ready or dual-billing.
Bill-ready scenario occurs when one market participant sends their charges to the other participant and both are sent on one bill to the customer. Either retailer or distributor could be the one mailing the charges to the customer.
Rate-ready scenario occurs when one market participant (typically the distributor) models the rates for the other participants (typically the retailer) in their system and bills for both. This could be done with one or two contracts.
Dual-billing scenario occurs when each participant handles their own charges and send them to the customer directly.
PM functions are not available
Device allocations and register relationships are possible
Proration in the case of final billing-related removal
Serial numbers and meter reading processing handled like normal devices
Device info record is used by retailers because they do not know details about the physical device. They would not need to generate service on the actual device - but need some object which can be used to store the meter reading information and provide some details for billing.
Separation of Device Management and Billing
Reduced range of CCS functions for energy service providers
Reduced range of CCS functions for meter operators/system operators
Reduced system overhead costs and required quantity of data
Simultaneous use of different points of delivery
Sequential use of same point of delivery
High-performance IDE supports data exchange
In the device installation, you can automatically create the device info record using the billing- related installation. This means that a technical installation in a device location is unnecessary. Using the billing-related device installation, you can maintain rate data at installation structure level for points of delivery or devices.