SAP Startup Spotlight: Energiency

Arnaud Legrand is the CEO of Energiency, a French scale-up founded in 2013 developing a 4.0 energy analytics software for smart manufacturing. Energiency has received more than 30 international awards related to innovation and entrepreneurship, including the 2019 Solar Impulse Efficient Solution. Energiency raised €10 M with Encevo, ISAI, Go Capital, West Web Valley and Bpifrance. Arnaud also launched ATL-EN-TIC, a joint venture that brings together 5 innovative service and technology companies in France dedicated to industrial energy performance. Arnaud has 14 years of experience as a cleantech and energy savings consultant for big manufacturing companies and utilities, for example with Ernst & Young Paris and Blu-e (now Engie/GDF Suez). He graduated in life science and cleantech engineering from Paris Institute of Technology and holds a MBA from Paris Collège des Ingénieurs. In this interview, he talks about what his company has to offer, how it is connected to SAP, and what’s next for Energiency.

E-3 Magazine: What exactly does Energiency offer?

Arnaud Legrand: Energiency is an Industry 4.0 technology mixing human and artificial intelligence to enable manufacturing companies to detect and achieve up to 15 percent new energy and CO2 savings in just a few months. It is the first technology that is 100 percent dedicated to energy intelligence for the manufacturing industry.

How does your solution work?

Legrand: The Energiency AI allows energy managers as well as production and maintenance operators to visualize and analyze their energy performance in real time. They can decide which actions to implement in order to achieve energy savings based on a live performance assessment. Energiency also automatically establishes a baseline calculated by our algorithms, taking into account factors of influence (production planning, OEE, maintenance events, weather conditions, etc). The Energiency technology is plug and play, designed to leverage data from ERP systems like SAP, and brings a new energy dimension to manufacturing companies.

Do customers need special technology to use your solution?

Legrand: Energiency was conceived for multi-site energy-consuming manufacturing companies with stakes regarding energy performance, ISO 500001 norm certification, or carbon footprint enhancement. The Energiency technology is agnostic to existing SCADA conditions within the plant and provides value regardless of which production information system is in place. Without any new meters or IoT Capex, Energiency is SAP ready by design and perfectly fits any factory, from small-cap to energy intensive large-cap leaders.

Why did you start Energiency to begin with?

Legrand: Manufacturing still accounts for 20 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions mainly related to energy consumption in factories. Saving energy in these plants is no longer a mere option but a necessity, and to face this challenge, manufacturers now install smart meters everywhere in their factories. With the advent of connected meters, especially in manufacturing, energy consumption data are now more numerous in factories. These data are often under-used even though they are a great potential competitive factor. In addition, regulations (ISO 50001 standard, mandatory energy audits, etc.) encourage manufacturers to equip themselves with tools to manage energy performance. However, 8 out of 10 factories in the world are still using a spreadsheet to analyze energy data, which is not suitable for real-time decisions and actions from operators in the workshop. Energiency was therefore launched to enable in-depth, real-time analytics of the energy performance for operators of manufacturing companies, with the goal of accelerating energy savings with fast paybacks.

How could your solution potentially help customers navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and the different challenges of reopening?

Legrand: Energiency does not directly help to fight against COVID-19, but this period allowed industrialists to think forward and update their priorities in favour of accelerating their digital and energy transformation. As factories are rather busy right now, most energy and production managers are forced to work remotely, which revealed a strong need for energy analytics tools in order to keep in close contact with on-site systems, monitor their KPIs and receive real-time alerts, especially with tools that can be set up remotely.

How are you connected to SAP?

Legrand: Energiency applied to the SAP.io program and got selected for the first season of the program in Paris in 2018. After an intense bootcamp which really helped us learn about SAP technology, the ecosystem and business practices, Energiency quickly adapted its technology to be fully integrated with SAP systems. This collaboration also induced a strong joint business approach, each company valuing this partnership as this offer was new in the market. Energiency has been identified to be the solution of choice when it comes to energy performance analytics for SAP Cloud Manufacturing. Ongoing discussions about Energiency’s potential integration in SAP DMCI are progressing with SAP teams in Paris, Walldorf and in the US. The Energiency platform has available at SAP EBC since 2019. Energiency is also part of the Axelle industry 4.0 concept machine. From a purely operational perspective, the Energiency platform collects real-time SAP production data thanks to automated extraction for energy performance analytics for clients such as ArcelorMittal or Shiseido.

How has SAP.io’s involvement impacted your journey?

Legrand: SAP has had a strong impact on Energiency, with regular joint participation in key events such as Global Industry Paris, Hannover Messe, Vivatech or European Utility Week. Being an exhibitor and a speaker at the SAP booth at Vivatech brought Energiency strong market visibility and multiple business opportunities with key C-level stakeholders. We closed a premium contract with a leader in the automotive industry this way.

What’s next for Energiency?

Legrand: Energiency enjoys a strong 150 percent growth rate of its international turnover, opening great perspectives in Europe and Asia. Energiency closed a €4.5 MA-Series financing round in 2020 with Encevo, a large-cap utility company operating in Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. Energiency is now opening a new office in Frankfurt to focus more on the German and central European market. Being a close partner of SAP will definitely be an asset to our business acceleration there. With Energiency’s potential integration in SAP Digital Manufacturing Cloud for insights (DMCI), Energiency aims to strengthen this partnership and accelerate the SAP energy performance go-to-market time.

Thank you for the interview.

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