# Review and Categorization of Digital Applications in the Energy Sector
## 4 Categorization of Digital Applications
### Customer Orientation  
Historically, electricity was mainly a commodity. Customers wanted electricity to be available and cheap. However, during the last decades, customers in Germany have developed further requirements. Climate-friendly electricity became more important, which can, for example, be seen in the rising number of renewable energy contracts (increase from 5% in 2008 to 24% in 2017 of German residential customers [47]). Furthermore, the experiences of data transparency and convenience in other sectors have changed customer expectations [34]. Customers, for example, become increasingly dissatisfied with receiving estimated monthly energy bills and an adjustment payment after a physical meter read rather than having full transparency of consumption and costs. These customer requirements (cheap, renewable energy with high transparency and convenience) are where digital applications can create benefits. \"Smart meters\" are one of the most crucial components for \"smart home\" applications. \"Smart home\" systems offer the possibility to continuously measure energy consumption (and therefore automatically issue bills based on actual consumption), disaggregate the consumption to distinctive household appliances and visualize this information [8; 34; 35; 36; 38; 39]. This creates transparency and subsequently offers possibilities to identify energy-saving potentials. \"Smart\" devices can be integrated into the \"smart home\" system, and their operation can be remotely controlled and manually or automatically optimized. These devices can be energy consumers (e.g., washing machines), energy generators (e.g., PV units), or energy storage units (e.g., batteries or e-cars). The optimization of these devices can reduce energy consumption or minimize the cost of the consumed energy as well as maximize the revenues of the electricity generation [7; 8; 34; 35; 38]. Overall, \"smart home\" systems and its components can use neural networks to learn the customer's habits and adapt to them, e.g., heating adapts to the customer's habit of working and sleeping. Furthermore, new digital customer interaction channels can be used or created such as WhatsApp, Facebook, online chats and self-service online portals. This not only increases customer satisfaction as it matches their expectations but can also reduce costs, especially if parts of the interaction are performed via bots or self-service portals [8; 34; 36]. Logically, non-energy related services can be included in the \"smart home\" system as well. By monitoring the usual consumption habits of an elderly person, an ambient assisted-living system could send an alarm if it detects anomalies [38; 39] which could indicate a potential problematic situation of the user. Further, data from temperature sensors can be used to detect open windows/doors and inform the owner. Ultimately, security systems could also be integrated into \"smart home\" systems [38]. The \"smart meter\" also offers the potential for another non-energy related service. Since the \"smart meter\" gateway, including all connections to authorized receivers of data, need to comply with the security standard BSI-CC-PP-0073 defined by the BSI (Bundesamt fur Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik/Federal Office for Information Security). This secure connection could also be used to transmit other information such as contracts, bank statements, and replace the hard copy signature. Furthermore, the data itself, gathered by the \"smart home\" systems, can be used. On the one hand, it can be used to offer customized energy-related services and products and even predict the customer's reaction to specific offers or events [8; 36]. On the other hand, the data can be sold, with the permission of the customer, to data-driven companies, e.g., marketing firms. However, it is not completely clear yet which are the areas where data on energy consumption can be the most valuable [38; 40].