The energy transition is one of the biggest collective endeavours of our time. And the challenge is not just technical. Utilities and energy companies are being asked to decarbonise, maintain reliable supply and keep energy affordable, all at once, with no straightforward way to balance all three.

Tobias Aschoff, Director of Software Application Engineering at Siemens Energy, frames it clearly: this cannot be done alone. It requires collaboration across customers, partners and the wider ecosystem. On the digital side, that means bringing domain knowledge and industrial software together to build solutions along the entire energy value chain.

Two challenges stand out. The first is cybersecurity. As attacks on energy infrastructure increase, keeping software patched and updated across both cloud and isolated OT environments is a growing operational priority. The second is volatility. Better forecasting of both energy generation and demand is key to managing reliability and affordability in a world of fluctuating prices. Siemens Energy’s weather forecasting solution, combined with asset knowledge, is one concrete response to that challenge.

Mark Schaefer, Senior Program Manager for Digitalisation at Siemens Energy, picks up on what happens when the problem is too complex or too customer-specific for a straightforward answer. Rather than pushing a solution, Siemens Energy proposes a co-creation approach. That means building a joint team, slicing the business problem down to something solvable, analysing the data and ecosystem, and defining a pilot that proves value fast before scaling. The customers, Mark notes, appreciate having those deep discussions.

Watch the video to hear Tobias and Mark’s full perspective on navigating the energy transition’s complexity and what a more collaborative approach to solving it looks like in practice.