# Review and Categorization of Digital Applications in the Energy Sector
## 5 Overview of Benefits and Impacted Stakeholders of Digital Applications
The stakeholders of the value chain (generation, grid, market, sales, customer/prosumer) are extended by the \"stakeholders\" environment and society/national economy. As explained in Section 3, the analyzed literature is reviewed for references regarding which stakeholders are affected by which digital application. A visual overview of the outcome is depicted in Figure 3.  
The stakeholder which is by far most often mentioned as impacted is the grid. While for applications of the category customer orientation the grid is hardly mentioned as impacted, all publications discussing applications of the categories \"System balance\" and \"Process optimization\" mention the grid as an impacted stakeholder. This underlines the importance of digitalization for the grid. As the transmission system operators in general already have a high level of digital maturity, most impacts of digital applications can be expected on the level of the distribution system operators. The second most mentioned impacted stakeholder is the consumer/prosumer. Although many applications in the category \"Customer orientation\" are mentioned with a direct impact on consumers, the overall high impact is also due to the possibilities for formerly passive consumers to actively participate in the energy market as a prosumer or with a demand flexibility, hence the mentioned impacts within the application category \"System balance\". Thirdly, generation and sales are mentioned as impacted stakeholders. An impact on sales is identified for applications of all categories and subcategories. Naturally, as sales are the interface between energy (service) providers and customers, most references occur for applications in the customer orientation category. The analyzed literature also frequently mentions impact on sales for applications in the \"Process optimization\" category due to the potential of automation and customer analysis. Applications of the \"System balance\" category mainly impact sales due to additional services which can be provided to the customer/prosumer such as the marketing of flexibilities. This finding is coherent with the identified potential of increased revenue for \"System balance\" applications (compare Figure 2). The stakeholder generation is mentioned mostly as impacted by applications in the category \"System balance\" and \"Process optimization\". Many applications are mentioned to have the potential to improve operation and maintenance processes, either in isolation or in the context of the energy system. Coherently with the analysis of the benefits, environmental protection impacts on the stakeholder environment are mainly mentioned for applications that improve system stability, hence enable more integration of renewable energy sources as well as applications with the potential to reduce energy consumption and use of resources. The energy market is not frequently mentioned as impacted by digitalization. Most instances that an impact is mentioned are due to the integration of flexibilities via price signals and new direct forms of energy trading such as peer-to-peer platforms. The energy trading itself today already is highly digitalized which might be an explanation why it is not frequently mentioned as impacted. Lastly, the society and the national economy are hardly mentioned as impacted. Most described impacts are an increase in availability hours of electricity (already very high in Germany [47]) and a reduction of the cost to supply energy which is passed through to the consumer. However, further social impacts such as privacy concerns and work conditions are, at least within the analyzed literature, not attributed to digital applications. Yet it is to be mentioned that cyber security risks are generally mentioned in some of the analyzed literature but not specific to any application.