From Backlog to Breakthrough: Alliander's Grid Solution with ServiceNow + AI

Alliander faces a critical convergence of challenges: surging demand exceeding grid capacity, a severe shortage of technical staff hindering maintenance and expansion, and crippling space constraints preventing vital infrastructure upgrades. Compounding these issues are operational inefficiencies like lengthy procedures and limited system choices, all exacerbated by extreme weather, aging infrastructure, renewable energy variability, and the explosive growth of clean tech. This confluence of factors threatens grid stability and demands immediate, decisive action.

Based in the Netherlands and managing over 42,000 km of gas pipeline, the utility company Alliander encountered several strategic challenges in 2019. Confronting rising EU regulatory requirements (to combat increasing ransomware attacks), increasing demands for distribution network efficiency, and the need to provide a better customer experience, they realized that evolving business realities required a much more scalable, connected, and intelligent Operational Technology Management platform. Continuing their advancement into Industry 4.0, Alliander engaged the ServiceNow and CoreX teams. the congested Dutch power grid before it hits a breaking point in this decade.

To provide a better customer experience, Alliander needed to drive standardization and optimization in their OT Asset and Service Management programs. Limited digital data and an expansive distribution network of monitoring devices meant the team had a significant challenge to overcome to achieve their goal—let alone build the right technological backbone to leverage rapidly evolving Artificial Intelligence solutions like ServiceNow Assisted and Agentic AI.

Alliander decided to transform its four primary Value Streams (business units) to demonstrate value and manage its organizational change management (OCM) needs in a manageable process—in particular, focusing on the mission-critical devices that monitor and manage the electrical grid.

Today, they are building the right foundations for the world-changing energy grid goals. they are on their path towards providing a better customer experience, improved overall efficiency, detecting downstream problems before they occur, and cost savings.  They are successfully employing a single network of connected data, moving from a shared yet isolated IT & OT CMDB to a secure and scalable data vision. They can now find and answer critical questions about the devices in the field, their locations, and configurations from a single centralized environment, which is driving a better customer experience.

Finally, aligned with Alliander's goals to foster innovation and ensure future scalability (all while improving customer convenience, risk management, and efficiency), the OT team now has the right building blocks for long-term, scalable technology implementation and advanced AI.