EnBW Industry on Campus Collaboration

With over 30,000 employees, EnBW is one of the largest energy companies in Germany and Europe. It supplies around 5.5 million customers with electricity and gas. As part of its transformation from a traditional energy company to a sustainable infrastructure group, the expansion of renewable energy sources and of the distribution and transmission grids for electricity, gas and hydrogen are cornerstones of EnBW's growth strategy and the focus of its investments. Until 2030, EnBW plans gross investments of €40 billion. By then, around 80 percent of EnBW's generation portfolio is to consist of renewable energies, and the company aims to phase out coal by the end of 2028. These are key milestones on the road to the company's climate neutrality in 2035. 

EnBW is already utilizing a wide range of AI solutions. A significant portion of our data is structured (such as forecasts, feed-ins, or measurements), which has enabled us to apply "classic" AI methods for many years. Examples include predictive maintenance of wind turbines, where we maximize uptime and efficiency through proactive maintenance. Another example is the forecasting of feed-ins from virtual power plants, which allows for precise planning and control of energy production. Additionally, we use Generative AI to create documents like performance specifications, support our network technicians in their work, and optimize our customer service. Furthermore, EnBW is already employing numerous other AI applications that create real value by increasing efficiency, taking over routine tasks. These applications also perform tasks that are unmanageable for humans due to the sheer volume of information to be processed. At EnBW, the aim is to make the use of AI a natural part of our operations, creating real value, and actively shaping the transformation of the energy system. The goal is to establish AI as a tool in the energy industry without the need for hypes or external impulses. 

The "Industry on Campus" partnership  is embedded in the Karlsruhe Digital Service Research & Innovation Hub (KSRI) and aims to promote collaboration between KIT and EnBW in the field of corporate AI solutions. The goal of the partnership is to closely integrate corporate practice and the research ecosystem in order to investigate and test innovative use cases for AI-based business processes at EnBW. As part of the collaboration, up to three talented EnBW researchers will be supported as doctoral students at KIT for a period of three years. The doctoral projects will be supervised by Prof. Alexander Mädche, Prof. Christof Weinhardt, and Prof. Jella Pfeiffer at the Institute forInformation Systems (WIN), whose research groups are part of the program. In addition, EnBW will support students through the Innovation Tech Talents mentoring program and will be involved in the faculty partnership ofthe KIT-Department Economics and Management.

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