A round-up of what the utility community is working on through September 2026. The month is dominated by one thing — SAP for Utilities in San Antonio, October 6–9 — so this summary leads with how to spend each day of it. Each item links to its source.
The Questions We Need Answered — the newest Utility Voice stacks nine articles and roughly fifty questions and is honest about how few came back. The useful finding is that they are not one kind of question: they sort by who can actually answer them — only you, inside your own utility; only SAP; only we, for each other; or nobody yet, which is where the OT boundary still sits. It also takes stock of SAP’s four 2026 purchases (Reltio, Dremio, Prior Labs, n8n) as of September 7 — closed, not yet delivered — and adds three utility questions to the vendor room. It ends with one ask for San Antonio: bring one answer. Read it here, and take the full list of questions with you.
Three great webinars in September – National VP for Utilities conversation, CX 2 from SAP and Water S/4 Journey by City of Madrid
The Meter Is On. Now Who Controls It? — the newest Utility Voice works through what SAP’s new AI pricing actually asks of a regulated utility. SAP has now published the economics — an agent action consumes 0.02 AI Units against a €7 list price per unit — so the meter is no longer the mystery; the workload is. It covers what moved down into Base AI; the decoupling that means what gets metered is not the request a user made but everything that request set off; why “outcome” pricing is doing work it hasn’t earned when the meter is per activity; the prudency problem of defending a variable, vendor-metered operating expense in a rate case; and the Joule Work Desktop surface nobody has priced yet. Along the way it turns to the live Arizona AI docket — and to SRP’s filing into it, which governs AI thoroughly along every axis except cost. It ends by putting three questions back to the community. Read it here.
Europe certifies the artifact. North America audits the operator. — last month’s Utility Voice untangles three instruments that keep getting presented as interchangeable proof of the same thing: the Cybersecurity Act certifying a product, ISO/IEC 42001 certifying a process, and AI Act conformity with CE marking governing market access. It works through the Article 40 presumption gap, why the CRA deadline binds before the AI Act deadline does, where the SAP estate under RISE quietly turns you into a provider, and what a European conformity artifact is and is not worth inside a CIP-013 supply chain assessment. Read it here.
Influence the future roadmaps for the products you already are using. Added Meter to Cash to the list. See all influence items here.
SAP for Utilities, October 6–9, San Antonio — how to spend each day
San Antonio is a month out. You have heard from me on why the trip is worth it, so this one is about how to spend the week once you are there. Each day of this conference does a different job, and knowing that in advance is most of the value.
Tuesday, October 6 — pick a lane. The two pre-conference workshops run 1:00–5:00pm and they run against each other, so this is a real choice rather than a schedule. Autonomous Enterprise for Utility Professionals covers Business Data Cloud, AI and Joule. From Reactive to Predictive covers modernizing asset management with SAP APM and connected data. Both carry an additional fee — $250, or $150 for ASUG members — and are currently open to members only, with non-members notified if space becomes available. Pick by which side of the house you own, and fly in Monday night so you are not making that call from the back of the room.
Wednesday, October 7 — the hour most people miss. Before the general session, 7:45–8:45am, three community meet-ups run at the same time: Community Power Up: ASUG Connect – Enterprise Architects, SAP Water Utilities, and Energy Utilities. I am hosting the Enterprise Architects one with Martin Mysyk of SAP. This is a small room and an open conversation, and it is usually where you find the person who already solved the thing you are working on. Put it in your calendar now, because nobody decides to go at 7:30.
After that, Wednesday is our utilities showing their work. NiSource on unified GIS and EAM. Consumers Energy on an end-to-end RISE transformation, and again on getting ready for S/4HANA. City of Tacoma on S/4HANA, CX and RISE as one approach. Central Hudson on upgrading S/4HANA on RISE. Avista on a modern data platform with BDC and Databricks. SMUD on financial planning with Business Data Cloud. TVA on ERP modernization. SCE on Field Service Management and SSAM. And the thing I like best, panel discussions: Beyond Go-Live: Lessons Learned from Stabilization, Support, and Continuous Improvement, with City of Tacoma, Chesapeake Utilities and Puget Sound Energy, and the one on the question that never makes it onto a slide: Panel Discussion: We’re Live on SAP S/4HANA Cloud…Now What? Managing Support, Downtime, and 24×7 Utility Operations with NPPD, AES, and OG&E.
One I would flag: our own community CX sub-groups, with utilities all running the different SAP CX solutions. That panel is at 11:45 am.
Wednesday evening — drop by. The official SAP for Utilities Welcome Reception starts at 5:00 pm. When it winds down, from 6:00 to 8:30 pm we will be at the Yard House, 849 E Commerce St, in the Shops at Rivercenter and a short walk from the hotel. Redwood Software, Onapsis, Resulting IT and Syniti are hosting. Register here. Please come join our conversations and catch up, make a new friend, go away with a follow up meeting, stay as long as you like. The point is the conversation that does not fit into a 45-minute breakout, and the connection that keeps working long after the week is over. That is how this community actually gets built.
Thursday, October 8 — the hard parts. Thursday is the day the program gets honest. The one I would flag is OG&E on modern meter-to-cash, orchestrating enterprise processes across SAP, data and AI — the end-to-end problem most of us are still solving in pieces. SRP on going from legacy to SAP CIS and where they drew the clean core line. On-premises to hyperscaler, and what that does to your SAP security operating model. Dominion on aligning EAM strategy. AES on asset management. Puget Sound Energy has started their journey. Come learn what it takes to go through the hard parts. Thursday closes at 5:00 with Cheers with Peers.
Friday, October 9 — do not book the early flight. Friday is the day I care most about, and it is the day the room thins out. It is almost entirely SAP roadmap and influence content: the EAM roadmap, the connected field service and asset management roadmap, Business Data Cloud for utilities, Service Cloud for utilities, clean core and AI-assisted development, and Architecting Operational Excellence with SAP’s Integrated Tool Chain. The connected field service and asset management roadmap is Viktor Kehayov, SAP’s Chief Product Officer for Field Service and Asset Management, with Paolo Manfrin on Field Service Management. All of it is included with a full conference registration at no additional cost.
Two of those are mine to point you at. At 9:00am I am presenting Architecting Development Capabilities: Clean Core Strategies and AI-Powered Development with Stefan Ressing, SAP’s Chief Enterprise Architect — clean core as the thing that keeps you upgrade-ready, and where Joule for Developers and Joule for Consultants actually change the work. Then at 10:30am, Innovate, Influence, Impact: AI, Roadmap & the Future of SAP Next-Gen Utilities Solutions with Holger Schweinfurth and Bruno Pincolini — the roadmap itself, and how community requests actually gain traction inside SAP’s planning process. These are not previews. They are the part of the week where what you say in the room changes what gets built. Come with the thing that is not working.
So, in short. Pick your Tuesday workshop. Set an alarm for Wednesday at 7:45. Come find us at the Yard House Wednesday evening. And move that Friday flight to the afternoon.
If you have not registered yet, the agenda and registration are here — and current pricing ends September 21.
Autonomous Enterprise:
SAP Utility Voice: The Meter Is On. Now Who Controls It? – what SAP’s new AI pricing actually asks of utilities.
SAP Utility Voice: Europe Certifies the Artifact – why your vendor’s certificate is not the thing you think it is.
SAP Utility Voice: The Accountability Gate – who owns the outcome when an AI agent acts.
SAP Utility Voice: Important Updates to the API Policy and the Audits you need to do now.
SAP Utility Voice: Strategic Agreements – What we all agree on.
SAP Utility Voice: The customer an agent sees.
SAP Utility Voice: The Data an agent reads.
ASUG Utility Voice: Who secures the Autonomous Enterprise
ASUG Utility Voice: A call to action for Utilities to influence SAP’s Autonomous Enterprise
The weekly DER digest keeps running — distributed energy research synthesised and published every Friday. Browse the digest archive here.
Two other things worth bookmarking: our webinar library, which now runs to two years of sessions, and the topic subscription page if you would rather only hear about the areas you work in.
If you would like any of the recordings, or if something here is useful and you want to talk about it, email me at marc@utility.community.
Marc Rosson
Utility.Community
425-297-0133