EDF SEI, towards a new data ambition
- CIO & CTO Advisory
The Island Energy Systems (SEI) Division of EDF is an entity dedicated to insular regions that are not interconnected with the mainland French electrical grid. It is involved in all the activities of EDF Group, including production, transportation, delivery, supply and balancing electricity supply & demand in territories such as Corsica, Guadeloupe, Guyana, Martinique, Réunion, Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, and certain Islands of the Ponant (Sein, Ouessant, Molène, Chausey).
Since 2023, the group has been committed to integrating data and AI into its operational excellence initiative “accelerating and industrializing digitalization,” one of the four major transformation projects led by the EDF Group’s COMEX.
Leveraging data through a new data strategy
The project to redefine EDF SEI’s data strategy arose from a simple observation: a vast data asset remained underutilized within the group, even though its value had the potential to significantly contribute to the performance and development of the SEI entity.
In 2023, the entity sought to revitalize its strategy by positioning data as a key performance lever for its operations. The use of this data is specifically aimed at supporting the achievement of the strategic Latitudes project objectives: providing its customers with decarbonized energy, relying on high-performance industrial tools, innovative solutions, and committed industrial partners across all territories. Thus, EDF SEI aligns with the group’s ambitions to produce 95% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.
Our ambition is to bring the value of data and AI to serve operational performance and energy transition for customers and territories.
Setting concrete data transformation goals and actions
The group’s data ambition is deeply embedded in the growing digitalization of processes. With more than one million connected meters (receiving and transmitting information remotely) deployed in households, sensors installed on networks, and the digitalization of business processes, EDF SEI has a wealth of valuable data that continues to grow.
EDF SEI’s first major initiative to harness this data was the creation of a Data Office, marking the beginning of a profound transformation centered around data. This office enabled the launch of structuring projects, placing data at the core of operations and generating a new source of value for the group.
To support this data ambition, the EDF SEI Division has set several transformation goals:
The technological transformation aims to bring the value of data to customers, employees, and territories through high-performance, robust, and scalable tools. To achieve this, the division redesigned its Data services (data platform, visualization tools, etc.) using Google Cloud Platform. This technological choice was made proactively, in alignment with the strategic direction of the EDF Group. As a partner, Wavestone supported the teams by providing the methodology, expertise and experience on these large-scale projects.
Ultimately, 144 use cases were migrated to the new Cloud platform, powered by data from 15 information systems, each providing essential data flows. The goal is to complete this migration by the end of 2025.
Operational transformation focuses on achieving clear governance of the domains under SEI’s responsibility. Several initiatives have been launched, including:
- Establishing a process for managing business needs and the lifecycle (development, testing, deployment, improvement, etc.) of use cases.
- Establishing data roles and functions within each business and defining a data quality approach. At the start of the project, over 20 data Owners were identified, with each region having 2 data liaisons responsible for facilitating communication and coordination between local teams and the Data Office.
To align with the EDF Group, SEI works tirelessly to embed a data culture among its more than 3,000 employees. The entity is thus in constant transformation to adapt to changes in its business and enhance its impact in the regions.
The Data Office plays a key role in this transformation by facilitating communication, training on data and AI culture, and promoting the sharing of practices across entities: ‘everyone must understand and find value in it’. At SEI, this is exemplified by the data culture and sharing day in each region.
Enhancing EDF’s operational excellence through data
Following the engagement, EDF fully embraced the transformation and with entinuous evolving, thanks to effective collaboration between the Group’s Information Systems Division and the business entities.
Overall, this data project has had a major impact on data quality, customer service, and the improvement of EDF’s data platforms. It has simplified interactions between different departments, streamlined processes, and offered more personalized services to the group’s customers. Today, EDF not only has a better view of what is happening in the non-interconnected territories but is also able to leverage this information to identify failures and find optimized solutions.
