Led digitalization process for solar plant ownership transfers
Background:
Netze BW, a leading energy distribution company, operates a vast network of solar plants across the region. As part of their ongoing digitalization efforts, they have developed an innovative solution to simplify and expedite the process of changing the owner of a solar plant within their network. This use case story highlights how Netze BW's digitalization process has eased the ownership transfer of solar plants.
Challenge:
The primary challenge was the error-prone and inefficient process of handling ownership transfers, which relied heavily on manual, paper-based methods. An owner of a photovoltaic plant had to fill out a complicated PDF and send it via E-Mail. The diversity of the stakeholders (from individual to corporate owners) added complexity to the transfer process. The goal was to simplify and accelerate this process while reducing the margin for error and improving user satisfaction.
My RoleUser Journey Mapping (They Do)
Stakeholder Interviews
Prototyping
Responsive Screendesign
TimeJan -Oct 2023
LinkThe outcome
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Dashboard - After Login
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Step 1 - Location of Solar Plant
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Step 2 - Reason for transfer + upload of documents
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Upload of Documents
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Step 4 - electricity Meter Reading
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Step 5 - Register at Marktstammdatenregister (DE)
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Dashboard / Status of Progress
Customer Journey Mapping
Utilized 'They Do' to map out the existing customer journey, identifying key pain points in the process.
User Group Identification:
Identified four main user groups affected by the process to ensure all perspectives were considered in the redesign. Created a Personas Matrix measuring each personas experience with solar plants and their experience with digital tech products.
Jobs to be done: transfer ownership
Sale or transfer of a system
When I buy, sell, or transfer a property with a photovoltaic system or a larger generation plant, I want to transfer operator responsibility correctly, so that the plant stays compliant and the handover is clean for both parties.
Company restructuring
When I take over a multi-family building as a property manager, or the ownership structure of a company operating a generation plant changes, I want to update the registered operator, so that responsibility is assigned to the right party.
Inheritance
When I am part of a community of heirs, or the sole heir, of a property with a generation plant, or I inherit a plant directly, I want to take over the operator role, so that the plant can keep running without legal gaps.
Results:
The digitalization of the ownership transfer process significantly reduced the time and errors associated with transfers.
The new system was well-received during user testing, showing a high rate of user acceptance and satisfaction.
The streamlined process allowed for a clearer, more intuitive interface that users could navigate with ease, leading to a decrease in customer support queries.
Landing Page Concept
Redesigned the landing page on Netze BW's site to support the new digital process and all mainly identified use cases. moving the ownership transfer functionalities to a dedicated login area. This allowed for starting the transfer process directly from an existing power plant by the previous owner in the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) version. Later the transfer is possible for all use cases, including users without an account at netze-bw.de
Reflections
This project highlighted the importance of understanding user needs across different groups and integrating their feedback into the digital solution. It also demonstrated the value of cross-functional collaboration in creating a product that not only meets but exceeds user expectations. Through this initiative, I enhanced my skills in project management and stakeholder engagement, preparing me to lead similar digital transformation projects in the future. Unfortunately there are no measurable results, since I wasn’t provided with any analytics software in the partner portal, when I did the handover. The only data I received were user test results for other partner products, provided by the ux research team, which I used for creating the user journey and identifying the main user groups.