Christian Freudenmann
email: c.freudenmann@ppc-ag.de

Dominik Henneke
email: dominik.henneke@hs-owl.de

Christian Kudera

Markus Kammerstetter

Lukasz Wisniewski
email: lukasz.wisniewski@hs-owl.de

Christoph Raquet
email: c.raquet@ppc-ag.de

Wolfgang Kastner

Markus Kammer- Stetter

Jürgen Jasper- Neite
email: juergen.jasperneite@hs-owl.de

Open and Secure: Amending the Security of the BSI Smart Metering Infrastructure to Smart Home Applications via the Smart Meter Gateway

ou non, émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

1

Smart Home and Smart Metering in Europe

Challenges for interconnecting Smart Home and Smart Metering

In a time of highly volatile electricity generation, the need for a dynamic energy system and thus Smart Grids is expected [START_REF] Farhangi | The path of the smart grid[END_REF]. Potentially, also end users with significant load or distributed energy resources can participate in the smart energy distribution by using home energy management systems or smart metering concepts which involve interactions with external market entities. One of two main challenges for interconnecting those components is the demand to support a wide range of different technologies and solutions in the background of proprietary smart home solutions. A second major challenge is the handling of private meter data according to EU requirements on smart metering as well as country specific regulations derived from them. Due to EU requirements being rather high-level, the communication and security requirements differ in each EU member country.

Approach for an interoperable solution

The European research project AnyPLACE is developing a smart metering platform with management and control functionalities. The aim is to create a solution which interconnects in-home appliances, smart meters and also external services, and which can be applied in any European country -in "any place". For making the solution highly interoperable, AnyPLACE is designed to have a common basis as well as adaptable elements. The generic part comprises e.g. a graphical user interface and energy management algorithms. The adaptable elements are realized in the following approach to connect the AnyPLACE core functionalities with other devices and systems.

An existing open-source smart home framework openHAB [START_REF]openHAB[END_REF] has been chosen to interconnect a broad variety of different technologies, systems and products. One of its core features is the possibility to amend it with new functionalities e.g. adding the support of new protocols to add new kinds of devices. This can be done by adding optional packages, which can be selected from a wide range of already existing addons developed for different smart home appliances and systems. In the AnyPLACE project, additional country specific packages have been designed to connect meters to the smart home system, taking into account respective technological, privacy as well as security requirements which were analyzed for each addressed country. Further details about the requirements which were identified for the different European countries are described in [START_REF] Henneke | Communications for AnyPLACE: A smart metering platform with management and control functionalities[END_REF].

The present paper focuses on the application environment and thus requirements of the German market and the derived solutions. At first, the regulations for the German smart metering infrastructure as well as possible resulting functionalities are sketched. Afterwards, the implementation of solutions to enable an interaction between this infrastructure and smart home systems is described in details. Finally, the paper gives insights of how those solutions for an interaction between the German smart metering infrastructure and smart home solutions shall be tested regarding security considerations.

2

German Smart Metering Infrastructure Functionalities

BSI Smart Metering Infrastructure offers platform for connection of subsystems

In Germany, the smart meter rollout has recently been initialized by law and will start in 2017. The Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) prescribes the security architecture for a secure and transparent handling of the end users' private meter data [START_REF]Protection Profile for the Gateway of a Smart Metering System[END_REF], [START_REF]Anforderungen an die Interoperabilität der Kommunikationseinheit eines intelligenten Messsystems[END_REF], [START_REF]Protection Profile for the Security Module of a Smart Metering System (Security Module PP)[END_REF]. The Smart Meter Gateway (SMGW) is a core element in this architecture as it is depicted in Figure 1. Its name suggests that the only purpose of the "Smart Meter Gateway" is to serve as a gateway to transfer meter data from smart meters to the respective energy supplier. But it is not limited to this functionality. It does provide secure communications to meters in the Local Metrological Network (LMN), but also to external service providers (EMT) in the Wide Area Network (WAN) as well as to the Home Area Network (HAN). Due to the communication with those networks, the SMGW serves as a platform to interconnect sub-systems that enable several additional functionalities. In the LMN it is possible to securely connect several meters to one SMGW. This is not restricted to electricity meters but is also valid for gas, water and heat meters. Further, meters of different households of the same building can be connected to one single SMGW. At the HAN interface of an SMGW, the historic and current meter data are made available specifically to the end user which the respective meters belong to. With the connection to the WAN, an end user can access external services by authorizing specific EMT to access specific meter data. The end user or company can also potentially participate in demand side management and virtual power plants. This can be done since it is possible to connect controllable local systems (CLS) to the HAN interface and remotely switch them over the secured network by authorized EMT connected to the WAN.

Functionalities of the HAN interface

In [START_REF]Protection Profile for the Gateway of a Smart Metering System[END_REF] the HAN interface is specified to be divided into three logical interfaces and respective use-cases:

 End user interface (IF_GW_CON)  Service technician interface (IF_GW_SRV)  CLS interface (IF_GW_CLS)
The end user interface is a "read-only" access. After authentication via certificate or username and password, the recent and historic meter values as well as tariff levels can be accessed. There are different tariff schemes that are used to store meter data and some of them have load or time variable elements. For those, the end user interface shows the currently active tariff levels, which can be used as information to potentially adapt the house-holds' or industries' prosumption (consumption and production) behavior accordingly. The meter data can be used by the end user to control his or her consumption or energy production results and raise awareness of energy efficiency or alignment of consumption peaks and local energy production. Potentially, this information can also be automatically gathered, used and assessed by local smart home systems. This aspect is described in the following chapter. The service technician interface can only be accessed by service technicians and provides logs and status information of a SMGW. However, this aspect is not the scope of this paper, since it does not provide functionalities which end users could use in smart home applications.

According to the law [START_REF]Gesetz über den Messstellenbetrieb und die Datenkommunikation in intelligenten Energienetzen (Messstellenbetriebsgesetz -MsbG)[END_REF], the system for measuring, transferring and controlling metering data as well as the secure connection of generation and consumption equipment, must fulfil the requirements specified in the respective protection profiles and technical guidelines. This also involves the SMGW to securely interconnect manageable devices connected to the CLS interface with authorized EMTs. This is done by establishing TLS encrypted connections between the SMGW and CLS devices or EMTs respectively, which are proxied over the SMGW. A single SMGW is designed to connect to several CLS devices. The Gateway Administrator (GWA) configures proxy profiles in the SMGW to define the possible communications between certain CLS devices and EMTs.

The proxy functionality works as a transparent connection that can be used independently of the applied protocols on top of the secure tunnel. In this way, the interface is not restricted to use-cases which are directly associated with energy systems such as switching photovoltaic units or combined heat and power plants, but it can theoretically also be used for any use-case demanding a secured connection between the HAN and the backend. In this sense, examples involving secure banking and sensitive health care data are as relevant as e.g. burglar alarm systems or smart home solutions.

3

Using the BSI concept for Smart Home Applications

Connecting Smart Home Applications to the HAN interfaces

Among the potential use-cases, also home energy management functionalities of smart home systems can benefit from the connection to an SMGW. They can use the HAN interface to access the readings of all meters that belong to a household and thus derive near real-time information about the energy consumption of a household or building, without the need of installing dedicated sub-meters. Information about the available tariff schemes can be used as an input for energy optimization algorithms that change automated device schedules or derive guidelines that assist users to manually optimize their consumption.

The CLS interface brings further potential to a smart home system. It can be used to access services via the proxy connection, allow external entities to change parameters in the system or make devices available to be controlled by third-parties that originally don't support a CLS communication. The open nature of the connection allows to use it for a wide range of different smart home applications, like mobile access to the smart home system from the users' smartphone or the interconnection with services such as IFTTT ("If This Then That") [START_REF]IFTTTif this than that[END_REF]. Figure 2 summarizes the usage of a smart home system in the BSI framework. In the AnyPLACE approach, both described HAN interfaces are used for the purpose of energy management functionalities of a smart home system. Therefore, a respective system has been enabled to interact with the CLS as well as the end user interface.

The approach is described in the following chapter. The implementation in the Any-PLACE project has been realized with the openHAB framework [START_REF]openHAB[END_REF] but this concept is also applicable to other smart home systems.

Implementation HAN end user interface in Smart Home Systems

Regarding the end user interface, the SMGW can be modeled as a gateway that abstracts the access to a number of different meters. A smart home system can connect to the HAN interface to receive meter readings in specified intervals (e.g. 15 minutes; specified by the configuration profiles).

As implementation example, the home automation software openHAB has been extended to support the connection to an SMGW. It uses an information model that abstracts all connected devices as so called things. Each thing is configured by parameters and provides channels that represent information from the devices. Since the gateway concept is also common in many smart home protocols (such as communication bridges to wireless network technologies), the information model can also represent bridges that are used as gateways for the things.

In this context, the SMGW can be implemented as bridge, while all meters are things. Different thing-types for the different meter-types (electricity, heat, water or gas) provide different channels and can be semantically enriched with predefined channel categories. This enables openHAB to read information from the meters as it would from any other connected device. Auto-configuration can also be implemented to automatically create all meters that a user has access to via the SMGW as things. Figure 3 shows the implemented things including the SMGW and meters connected to the SMGW (in this example one electric meter). Figure 4 shows channels of the SMGW and the attached electric meter, which have been realized in the binding.

Implementation HAN CLS interface in Smart Home Systems

The connection of smart home systems to the CLS interface provides the possibility to access external services from the system, to publish controls to an external service, or to make selected devices as well as aggregated prosumption available to be controlled and configured by authorized external market entities. The CLS connection demands a client-certificate based connection establishment. Each CLS device is assigned with a client-certificate to connect to the SMGW. The regulatory guideline [START_REF]Anforderungen an die Interoperabilität der Kommunikationseinheit eines intelligenten Messsystems[END_REF] specifies three communication use cases: CLS-initiated, EMT-initiated, and SMGW-initiated.

The CLS-initiated communication is implemented as SOCKSv5 connection. The CLS establishes the proxy connection and afterwards accesses the EMT service. The SMGW checks if a profile for the tuple <CLS, EMT> is available, forwards the connection establishment, and provides a communication channel between CLS and the EMT.

The EMT-initiated communication starts with a request from the EMT to the GWA for a connection to the CLS. The GWA sends a respective wake-up packet to the SMGW. If a profile for the tuple <CLS, EMT> exists, the SMGW establishes a connection to both the CLS and the EMT. Then, the EMS can send a request to the CLS device.

The SMGW-initiated communication is similar to the EMT-initiated one. But instead of the EMT requesting a connection establishment, this is triggered by an event inside the SMGW (e.g. when a new measurement is available or a tariff has changed).

In the example of openHAB, an extension to support CLS-communication can be implemented in different ways. One possibility is the provision of the RESTful API, that can be used to access and control all connected devices, to the EMT (see fig-ure 5). A plugin uses the SMGW bridge to establish a CLS channel and to provide an interface that is used to access the API. After an EMT initiates the CLS connection, it is able to control openHAB. For this use case, the smart home system only requires a single CLS certificate to provide the EMT with a full control over the system and its connected devices.

Fig. 5. openHAB serves as a single CLS device

Another possibility is the provision of single items (i.e. channels of a thing) to be accessed and controlled by an EMT (see figure 6). The user can add CLS-things that are assigned with individual items or things. This allows a fine graded permission control and demands an individual CLS certificate for each item or thing. This implementation reflects the same scenario as if all connected devices are CLS-capable by themselves. The advantage over the first possibility is that the user can control which devices are made available to the EMT. Both use cases can be implemented in the EMT-initiated communication scenario.

Consideration of Security Aspects

Security test arrangement

In the development of the proposed architecture, security issues need to be considered. Former related work concentrated on the security of the gateway and the overall architecture (e.g. [START_REF] Lunkeit | Threat Modeling Smart Metering Gateways[END_REF]). The focus in the current implementation therefore is on analyzing and addressing the potential existence of security issues in the implementation.

The test arrangement shown in figure 7 is segmented to the LAN (Local Area Network), which is normally operated by the end user and the WAN, which is operated by the grid operator. In the WAN segment the SMGW is connected via the WAN interface to the GWA and an EMT. In the LAN segment the SMGW is connected via the two HAN interfaces End-User and CLS to openHAB, which is part of the Any-PLACE Platform. Based on the BSI Infrastructure standard the openHAB CLS Binding can be controlled by the EMT via the proxy functionality of the SMGW.

Security test scenarios

The test scenarios are divided into the assumption of a compromise of one of the network segments (LAN or WAN) and network components (AnyPLACE Platform, SMGW, EMT or GWA).

In the first scenario the assumption is that the LAN segment is compromised. This enables an attacker to attack the AnyPLACE Platform and the SMGW via the end user and the CLS interfaces. The attacker has no further information (e.g. network addresses, open ports, certificates, details about encryption, details about authentication, etc.) about the devices in the LAN segment.

As second scenario it is assumed that the WAN segment is compromised. The attacker has no further information about the WAN communication. He can attack the WAN interface, the GWA and the EMT. Since the GWA and the EMT are not a part of the project's implementation, only an attack of the WAN interface is considered.

As a third scenario the compromise of the AnyPLACE Platform is considered. Through the compromise the attacker will receive the certificates for the end user and CLS connection between the AnyPLACE Platform and the SMGW. He can use certificates to generate valid messages, authenticate himself against the SMGW and he can attack the EMT because of the proxy functionality of the SMGW. Since the Any-PLACE Platform is connected to the internet, there is also the possibility that the EMT is attacked from the internet via the path AnyPLACE Core -openHAB -SMGW. This scenario is not in the scope of the tests, since the security means of the EMT are not part of the project's implementation and the EMT must generally make provisions against this scenario.

In the fourth scenario the assumption is that the SMGW is compromised. On the LAN segment the attacker can attack the AnyPLACE Platform, the CLS device and the infrastructure of the retail customer. On the WAN segment the attacker can attack the GWA and the EMT. This scenario is not considered since at this point the whole security infrastructure would be inactive.

In the fifth scenario the attacker manages to compromise the EMT, so he can attack the SMGW on the WAN side or the AnyPLACE Platform and the CLS device due to the proxy functionality of the SMGW. It will be also analyzed if the attacker can attack the network infrastructure of the end user in this scenario.

The sixth scenario is the compromise of the GWA. Through the compromise of the GWA the attacker will get access to the SMGW. This scenario is not considered since at this point the whole security infrastructure would be inactive.

Security test methodology

For the security evaluation, several suitable methods described in [START_REF] Ruef | Die Kunst des Penetration Testing[END_REF] were selected.

Network sniffing: With a network sniffer the network traffic can be recorded and analyzed. Normally an attacker uses network sniffing as first attack to receive some knowledge about the network. The metadata like IP addresses, used protocols or used ports provide information which can be used for further attacks. A limitation of network sniffing is that only services which communicate during the usage of the network sniffer can be identified.

Port scanning: A port scanner is an application to scan a device for open ports (TCP and UDP). Since port scanning is an active method where each port is tested, it is possible to find services which cannot be identified with network sniffing. The information about open ports will be used for further attacks.

Fuzz testing: Fuzz testing is a technique where unexpected or random data is sent to the input of a computer. The aim is to trigger errors like crashes or overflows. In the case of network security, fuzz testing is used to analyze the behavior of services on manipulated messages. Fuzz testing can be a very efficient method to find vulnerabilities on devices. This requires access to debug functionalities in order to determine which kind of error was triggered by the fuzz test.

Replay attacks: This is an attack where a recorded message is repeated maliciously. For example, the message from an EMT to a CLS device to activate some load can be recorded and replayed. If the message is encrypted but has no protection against replay attacks, this attack will also work although the attacker will not know the content of the message.

Man-in-the-middle attacks: This is an attack where an attacker is hooked in a communication between two devices. He can manipulate, alter, delay or generate messages in a malicious way.

Testing of protocols: Often protocols support different standards. For example, the TLS protocol allows a lot of different cipher and some of them are known as insecure. It is important to ensure, that none of this insecure standards are used, otherwise it might be possible to attack the communication between devices or a device itself.

Security evaluation and result utilization

Each test method will be applied on each scenario to identify security issues at the implementations created in the project. If a vulnerability is identified, the implementation will be overhauled to close the vulnerability. For elements of the overall infrastructure which are not part of the implementations done within the AnyPLACE project and thus not possible to modify, respective recommendations for a potential improvement of security will be formulated.

Conclusion and Outlook

The SMGW offers the possibility for end users to access meter data and to securely switch loads and generation in the households via its HAN interface. By connecting smart home systems to the HAN interface an established set of solutions in this area can be connected to the new smart metering infrastructure. In this way, the end user can easily make use of its additional possibilities. Different implementation scenarios from the scope of the AnyPLACE project has been presented. The connection of the open source home automation framework openHAB shows the possibilities of the interconnection with the SMGW infrastructure. Furthermore, the definition of security tests shows that a thorough implementation and testing is required in order to minimize the added risks that are introduced by establishing this interconnection.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. BSI Smart Metering Infrastructure [6].

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Integrating Smart Home to the BSI Infrastructure -Adapted from BSI-CC-PP-0077-V2-2015 [6].

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. The SMGW and an electric meter as things in openHAB.

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. The channels of the things in openHAB.

Fig. 6 .

 6 Fig. 6. openHAB serves as multiple CLS devices.

Fig. 7 .

 7 Fig. 7. Test arrangement for the security evaluation.

Acknowledgement

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 646580.


Fabian Reck

Michael Kolloch

Alexander Fliaster

Preparing Energy Providers' Knowledge Base for Going Digital

Keywords: Innovation, strategic knowledge management, digitalization, smart technologies, municipal energy providers, action research

des établissements d'enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés.

Introduction

In comparison to other industries, the energy sector is in dire need of innovation. Past business models and processes frequently cease to be functional and need to be adjusted, if not fully changed via new ideas. Due to their decentral orientation, municipal utilities are at a promising point of departure from which still unknown paths lead to future opportunities. In order to realize those, courage and professional preparation are necessary. [4: 2] As stated in the above quotation from Ernst & Young's 2015 annual Stadtwerkestudie (Engl. Study on Municipal Utilities), innovation represents a pressing issue in the energy sector. Especially in Germany, manifold external challenges like the planned closure of nuclear power plants, the transition in energy production towards renewables, the liberalization of the power supply market and the decentralization of power generation drive change in market actors' offerings, financial models, internal processes and business models [START_REF] Jacobsson | Transforming the Energy Sector[END_REF]. Additional to such regulatory influence, the advent of digital technologies which is particularly evident in the advancement of the complex range intelligent decentral systems termed Smart-X serves as major trigger for disruption in the industry [START_REF] Strengers | Smart Energy Technologies in Everyday Life[END_REF]. From the viewpoint of municipal utilities, the general tendency towards decentralization provides considerable business opportunities [START_REF] Edelmann | Digitale Geschäftsmodelle: Digitalisierung in der Energiewirtschaft[END_REF]. Still, proactiveness, entrepreneurial orientation and a professionalized and strategic approach towards innovation and innovation management are premise for harvesting opportunities and preventing bigger or more specialized market actors to from raiding own segments. Unfortunately, most utilities struggle to meet these requirements [START_REF] Edelmann | Gewohnte Wege verlassen: Innovation in der Energiewirtschaft[END_REF].

One core hurdle confronting small and medium-sized energy providers is the need to acquire and develop expertise and competencies which differ from those which were needed for the traditional business logic of the industry [START_REF] Schilling | Technology S-curves in Renewable Energy Alternatives: Analysis and Implications for Industry and Government[END_REF]. As resources for such expertise development are limited, a focused, effective and efficient approach to this end is indispensable [START_REF] Zack | Developing a Knowledge Strategy[END_REF]. Organizations must know in which fields of expertise to invest, which competences to acquire and how to manage a process of continual development, adjustment and improvement. Hence, the challenge of configuring one's organizational knowledge base to one's innovation goals represents a key strategic task with high potential for outpacing other actors in the market [START_REF] Grant | Toward a Knowledge-based Theory of the Firm[END_REF]. Against this background, it is surprising how little effort has been made to shed on this issue both in the context of the energy sector and also beyond [START_REF] Zack | Developing a Knowledge Strategy[END_REF]. There is a clear need for applicable management procedures, tools and techniques to support strategic executives and innovation managers.

In this paper, we describe the development of a procedure for analyzing, planning and developing firms' knowledge base configuration for addressing current and future changes in the energy sector, such as decentralization, digitalization and energy transition. We explicitly focus on municipal utilities with the goal to provide them with a methodology that eventually supports their efforts in process, product and administrative innovation by setting up the necessary base of expertise. Thereby, our work is rigorous both in respect of methodological approach -we follow systematic procedures of action design research [START_REF] Sein | Action Design Research, Manage[END_REF] -and theoretical foundation -we base our considerations on the findings of previous research and integrate insight gained from our recent empirical investigations [START_REF] Reck | It's All in the Mix: How Configurations of Internal and External Knowledge Foster Organizational Innovativeness[END_REF].

The final procedure aims to address three core issues in previous guidelines, frameworks or methodologies of knowledge management which compromise those approaches' value for handling the above mentioned issues: a) overly problemistic approaches and lack of long-term focus; b) insufficient differentiation between different types of knowledge; c) missing contextual focus. In the following, we will present our approach of tool development, before we explain and discuss the developed procedure.

Research Methodology

The research approach chosen is based on principles of action design research [START_REF] Sein | Action Design Research, Manage[END_REF] which combines elements of design science and action research. Design science intends to create prescriptive design knowledge by building an artifact addressing a specific problem. By aiming to develop an applicable management tool which helps municipal utilities to configure their organizational knowledge base with the goal of fostering innovation, we follow this motivation. It is widely considered as useful to augment this artifact-focused research methodology with the principles of action re-search, namely the interaction between practice and research as well as the involvement of researchers in practical problem solving. Thus, in order to enhance the practical usefulness of the designed artifact, we strive for including practitioners' immediate challenges, suggestions and opinions throughout the whole design process. Thereby, in-depth knowledge of researchers' concerning the problem and its context and consequentially more valid management procedures and tools can be ensured [START_REF] Sein | Action Design Research, Manage[END_REF].

In particular, we apply a recently developed framework for the creation of business tools and procedures published by the Institute for Manufacturing at the University of Cambridge [START_REF] Ilevbare | A Framework and Methodology for creating Business Tools and Processes[END_REF]. Because of its explicit focus on management tools, its in-depth specifications as well as its application-oriented focus, there is an adequate fit of this framework to this paper's purpose. In all, the framework comprises five iterative phases which are described below: problem identification and tool definition, design, development, test and refinement, deployment (see also Table 1).

Problem identification and outcome definition (Stage 1)

. At the beginning, three factors must be described adequately in order to enable a problem-oriented and contextually focused development of business tools: the business purpose, the scope and the expected user [START_REF] Ilevbare | A Framework and Methodology for creating Business Tools and Processes[END_REF]. In order to derive a thorough definition, we had several discussions and interviews with C-level executives of single utilities and industrial associations, with senior innovation managers at energy providers as well as with an interorganizational innovation circle. As a result, we define the intended outcome of this research as follows: "We aim at developing a procedure that allows strategic level managers in municipal utilities to analyze the configuration of their current organizational knowledge base, assess its suitability for successful innovation, identify areas for improvement as well as plan and execute such improvements." Based on this definition, the specific problem context and prior theoretical and practical insight, concrete requirements were deduced (see chapter 3).

Design and development (Stages 2 and 3).

Following this definition, the core development team consisting of two university-based researchers and one innovation manager based at one of the most prominent and largest German municipal energy providers developed the managerial tool. These efforts were supported by the intensive scanning of related research and practice literature concerning innovation, knowledge, and strategic knowledge management, by discussion and idea validation with practitioners and by empirical investigations on which knowledge base configurations benefit different types of innovation in the energy sector (results of this study are published in [START_REF] Reck | It's All in the Mix: How Configurations of Internal and External Knowledge Foster Organizational Innovativeness[END_REF]).

Table 1. Application of the development framework (based on [START_REF] Ilevbare | A Framework and Methodology for creating Business Tools and Processes[END_REF]; elements adapted from [START_REF] Sein | Action Design Research, Manage[END_REF])

Test and Refinement (Stage 4).

In order to prove the developed tool's effectiveness and usability, cycles of test and refinement are indispensable. This stage is often the nucleus of both practical and theoretical knowledge creation as now, assumptions made in design and development are on trial [START_REF] Sein | Action Design Research, Manage[END_REF]. The testing stage encompasses two compatible approaches: a) subjective assessment by experienced practitioners and b) application in a number of practical cases [START_REF] Ilevbare | A Framework and Methodology for creating Business Tools and Processes[END_REF]. While practitioner assessment has been obtained from the innovation management unit at a large municipal utility and the innovation group within a network of energy providers, tests in practice are owing at this juncture, not to mention valid feedback on mid-term effects. We plan to start practice tests in cooperation with industry-wide innovation circles in early 2017.

Deployment (Stage 5).

Without adequately high numbers of use cases, the effectiveness of a method can be assumed, however not empirically substantiated [START_REF] Ilevbare | A Framework and Methodology for creating Business Tools and Processes[END_REF]. Hence, both for enlarging the academic knowledge base and providing valid solutions to practical problems, diffusion of the tool among practitioners is eligible. Achieving this is our long-term prospect, planned for 2017 and beyond.

Theoretical Background

Applying the approach explained above, we develop our procedure based on relevant, extant academic knowledge. These insights set the assumptions which underlie the functionality of the tool and thus determine the requirements it has to meet in order to prove effective. Thereby, we review literature on the nature of the core concepts demonstrated in the outcome definition: organizational knowledge as working point to be influenced by the procedure, innovation, in particular digital innovatioin, as organizational outcome of interest and municipal utilities as organizations with specific characteristics which operate in a specific industrial context. In the following, the paper gives a compact outline of each literature's key assumptions, extracts the relevant information needed to guide the design of management tool and proposes requirements for the tool.

Organizational Knowledge Base

Knowledge is one of the most important resources of companies, especially due to its immaterial nature [START_REF] Grant | Toward a Knowledge-based Theory of the Firm[END_REF]. Because knowledge is often implicit, procedural and embedded in an organization's members, structures, processes and artifacts [START_REF] Argote | Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms[END_REF] it is hard to replicate and thus a source of sustainable competitive advantage [START_REF] Grant | Toward a Knowledge-based Theory of the Firm[END_REF]. For a strategic approach to knowledge management these characteristic bear several implications. First, knowledge embedded in the organization must be mapped and assessed [START_REF] Wexler | The Who, What and Why of Knowledge Mapping[END_REF]; second, internal knowledge development takes considerable time and effort [START_REF] Argote | Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms[END_REF]; third, knowledge transfer is necessarily imperfect so that externally acquired knowledge possesses different value and limitations than internally developed knowledge [START_REF] Argote | Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms[END_REF]. These three assumptions combine to the following requirement:

R 1 : Reflect the embedded nature of knowledge and consequential implications for its development and acquisition

The knowledge base of an organization encompasses more than only the intellectual capital in its direct possession. In fact, firms can draw on the expertise of other actors, such as consultants, business partners, customers, research institutes, legal advisors, universities, government agencies to name only a few [START_REF] Lee | Open Innovation in SMEs: An Intermediated Network Model[END_REF]. While external knowledge has different characteristics than internal intellectual capital (as outlined above) [START_REF] Argote | Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms[END_REF], it is essentially to be included in our considerations. This is in line with the open innovation paradigm stating that the locus of innovation lies not within a single firm, but within a complex network of interdependent actors [START_REF] Powell | Interorganizational Collaboration and the Locus of Innovation[END_REF]. This notion must be captured by any management tool concerning strategic knowledge management.

R 2 : Provide a boundary-spanning perspective on the organizational knowledge base

Knowledge is multi-dimensional [START_REF] Grant | Toward a Knowledge-based Theory of the Firm[END_REF]. Though most works utilizes single types of knowledge as research variables, there is a broad consensus in literature on the notion that different types of knowledge exist and that these types may differ in several aspects [START_REF] Sammarra | Heterogeneity and Specificity of Inter-Firm Knowledge Flows in Innovation Networks[END_REF]. In particular, there are different domains of expertise such as technological, market-and customer-related or managerial knowledge [START_REF] Sammarra | Heterogeneity and Specificity of Inter-Firm Knowledge Flows in Innovation Networks[END_REF]. Rather than perceiving knowledge as a unitary quantity, effective knowledge management acknowledges its nature as a complex configuration of multiple knowledge types. R 3 : Take the multi-dimensional nature of knowledge into account

Organizational Innovation

The configuration of an organization's knowledge base as a whole determines that particular organization's innovative output to a large degree. Knowledge represents the key input resource for innovation [START_REF] Grant | Toward a Knowledge-based Theory of the Firm[END_REF]. Hence, every innovative activity is linked to some set of intellectual capital, competences and expertise [START_REF] Zack | Developing a Knowledge Strategy[END_REF]. Concerning value creation via innovation, single new product, service or process concepts in isolation lack the ability to provide a basis for differentiation in the market [START_REF] Teece | Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation[END_REF]. Only the accumulation of these single innovative endeavors over time enables superior competitive performance. Consequentially, the task of configuring the organizational knowledge base is a long-term oriented, goal-focused, holistic, in short a highly stra-tegic one [START_REF] Zack | Developing a Knowledge Strategy[END_REF]. A useful management tool must thus outreach the often IT-focused approach taken by many traditional methodologies of knowledge management and explicitly outline the content of an organization's knowledge as core strategic asset. Corollary to this strategic perspective, our work aims to transcend a common, but in isolation rather ineffective approach that firm's take towards innovation: problemistic search [START_REF] Greve | A Behavioral Theory of R&D Expenditures and Innovations: Evidence from Shipbuilding[END_REF]. Unfortunately, this approach is also reflected in most respective management tools. Problemistic search describes the tendency of firms to initiate the search and development of knowledge when facing problems which negatively impact or threaten the fulfillment of performance goals [START_REF] Greve | A Behavioral Theory of R&D Expenditures and Innovations: Evidence from Shipbuilding[END_REF]. Transferred to our context, energy providers lacking expertise concerning for instance smart grid systems might actively search to acquire such competences. While such a rather reactive behavior is important for continuously readjusting a company's business model to fit its environment, firms which only approach innovation this way will unlikely be exceptionally successful. In fact, superior innovators draw on knowledge slack, "the pool of resources in a firm in excess of the minimum necessary to produce a given level of organizational output" [14: 1246]. To possess knowledge when it is not immediately needed may highly benefit innovative performance, as it frees innovator's attention from short term issues, enables creativity and promotes experimentation [START_REF] Nohria | Is Slack Good or Bad for Innovation?[END_REF]. As a consequence, the innovating firm may pursue a more solution-push than need-pull approach that can yield advantages of pioneering. Our tool must hence both apply to the problemistic and the slack approach.

R 5 : Go beyond merely problemistic approaches towards knowledge development

Especially concerning digital and smart technologies, energy providers need to fundamentally reinvent their offerings, their business model as well as themselves [START_REF] Yoo | Organizing for Innovation in the Digitized World[END_REF]. This entails combining different single innovations to the big picture [START_REF] Teece | Business Models, Business Strategy and Innovation[END_REF]. For instance, the business model of virtual power plants encompasses offering customers an electricity mix with high shares of renewables at high levels of reliability (product innovation), automated and intelligent load management (process innovation) and a decentralized network of energy producers that needs to be coordinated and governed (administrative innovation). In order to configure the organizational knowledge base for the challenges of digital innovation, an effective tool should accommodate the diversity of innovation types involved. R 6 : Reflect the complex nature of innovation in an era of digitalization

Characteristics of the Energy Sector and Municipal Energy Providers

Across different industrial sectors, the knowledge resources required for innovation can vary considerably. This is due to industrial ideosyncrasies concerning the technological, market, regulatory and competitive environment [START_REF] Porter | Competitive Advantage[END_REF]. As a consequence, there is no global but rather a contextual value for different types of expertise based on industry characteristics. For instance, the energy market is highly regulated [START_REF] Kolloch | Staatliche Regulierung und Digitalisierung als Antezedenzien für Innovationen in der Energiewirtschaft am Beispiel von REMIT[END_REF].

Therefore, knowledge on regulation, politic developments or legal issues might provide companies with valuable options for navigating resulting environmental opportunities and constraints and thus be more important than in other sectors. Similarly, the diversified technology base including ICT, storage and transmission technologies, or installation, among others, may account for specific knowledge configurations enabling innovation [START_REF] Strengers | Smart Energy Technologies in Everyday Life[END_REF]. The intended procedure has to be based on empirical data revealing such ideosyncrasies and deduce reasonable implications.

R 7 : Explicate industry-specific ideosyncrasies concerning knowledge and innovation

A large share of municipal utilities are small organizations lacking financial, material and personnel resources for strategic innovation management in comparison to large market players such as the Big 4 in Germany [START_REF] Edelmann | Gewohnte Wege verlassen: Innovation in der Energiewirtschaft[END_REF]. Knowledge as a scarce and valuable resource is costly to acquire and develop [START_REF] Grant | Toward a Knowledge-based Theory of the Firm[END_REF]. Most likely, utilities will lack capital and time for developing a knowledge base covering all potentially valuable fields of expertise. Hence, specialization on a focused set of internal intellectual capital enriched by carefully selected external acquisitions is a preferable approach towards knowledge base configuration. Utilities must thus know, which promising niche approaches exist and how they can adopt these.

R 8 : Allow for niche approaches for small and medium-sized energy providers

Similarly, structural characteristics of municipal energy providers may set boundary conditions for their knowledge acquisition and development strategy. Two of the most important ones are local attachment and public ownership. Local attachment may for instance hinder the recruitment of skilled employees, one of the most impactful ways of knowledge acquisition [START_REF] Argote | Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms[END_REF]. Public ownership on the other hand can slow down the decision on as well as the implementation of strategic knowledge development plans [START_REF] Judge | Antecedents and Outcomes of Decision Speed in Different Environmental Context[END_REF]. Such potential issues must be identified by the tool and dealt with accordingly.

R 9 : Take into account structural constraints of municipal utilities

A Management Tool for Analyzing, Planning and Developing Utilities' Knowledge Base Configuration

Within this section, we outline the developed four-phase management tool -the EPOS procedure. Thereby, the focus is on the distinguishing features of our tool which address the requirements R 1 -R 9 . We first describe general suggestions for application before we provide detailed explanation on each of the four phases (see Figure 1).

The EPOS Procedure -General Instructions for Application

The procedure is intended to support the creation and implementation of a companywide strategic plan for the improvement of the organization's knowledge base. As such, recommendations for successful strategic initiatives widely apply also here [START_REF] Covin | Implementing Strategic Missions: Effective Strategic, Structural and Tactical Choices[END_REF]. First, the tool is applied by an internal project team. The team should be com-posed in such a way that it has insight in all relevant areas of the utility and represent the organization as a whole [START_REF] Alwert | Wissensbilanz: Made in Germany. Leitfaden 2.0 zur Erstellung einer Wissensbilanz[END_REF]. Hence, the team should include employees and managers from different hierarchical and functional levels. The inclusion or at least support of the top management level is thereby indispensable.

Fig. 1. Overview of the procedure

Second, our tool aims at actual improvement, so that project and progress management is highly important. We suppose using a dual structure between central workshops between which single focus groups perform tasks such as item specification, data collection, or championing the project to the rest of the organization. There should be at least six central meetings of the whole EPOS team including one kickoff, each one full-day workshop for all the four phases as well as one to several follow-up meetings to ensure the implementation of the project's results and its long time impact.

Third, the EPOS procedure represents a process of building meta-knowledge and thus organizational learning. Because it deals with complex knowledge, new insights, data, arguments, interpretations and ideas may emerge during its application [START_REF] Alwert | Wissensbilanz: Made in Germany. Leitfaden 2.0 zur Erstellung einer Wissensbilanz[END_REF]. The working culture should explicitly allow for this. For instance, discussion of new insights should be institutionalized, for instance via well-defined time slots at the beginning of each workshop. In general, open-mindedness and flexibility towards new ideas are essential success factors for EPOS.

E -Expose Knowledge Needs

In the first step, the company must know which types of expertise, information and competences it needs in order to innovate digitally. At the beginning of this, the project team should draw on existent innovation roadmaps or outline opportunities for digital innovation by itself. Thereby, explicating the own current business model and outlining how it might be change by the application of digital technologies is helpful. There are three broad possibilities for digitalizing the business model (complexity of change in ascending order): optimizing existent business models (e.g. using software for complaint management), enriching existent business models (e.g. smart metering app for electricity customers), and extending the current business model (e.g. municipal e-car sharing). It is important to mention, that the feasibility of such digitalization opportunities depends heavily on general strategic constraints such as served business segments and regionalism and must thus be assessed against this background. Result-ing digital innovations are combinations of a certain set of product, process and administrative innovations [START_REF] Yoo | Organizing for Innovation in the Digitized World[END_REF]. Hence, after prioritizing digital opportunities, these should be broken down to the different types of innovations involved.

Fig. 2. Analysis steps for exposing knowledge needs

Based on such a set of aspired innovations, the knowledge needs of the firm can be determined. Due to the assumptions leading to R 5 , a two-sided analysis approach is advisable. On the one hand, the bottom-up approach aims at outlining specific knowledge needs by examining concrete use cases respectively innovations. Knowledge mapping methodologies [START_REF] Wexler | The Who, What and Why of Knowledge Mapping[END_REF] are helpful here as they allow for examining systematic interdependencies of knowledge elements. On the other hand, the topdown approach rather aims at providing the firm with an eligible base of expertise for various tasks concerning digital innovation by taking a more general, slack-based perpective on the knowledge needs. In an empirical study in the energy industry [START_REF] Reck | It's All in the Mix: How Configurations of Internal and External Knowledge Foster Organizational Innovativeness[END_REF], we extracted the knowledge base profiles of successful innovators. Our findings yielded between 2 and 4 profiles for each product, process and administrative innovators. Based on the combination of intended innovations, one or two of these profiles should be selected as benchmarks for the own company's knowledge. In the second phase, the current organizational knowledge base must be compared to the needs identified in phase 1 (see Figure 3). In order to achieve this, an in-depth assessment of the firm's knowledge is necessary. Here, the Wissensbilanz (Engl. intellectual capital statement) developed by the German Fraunhofer Institute proposes an item and indicator-based evaluation of the quantity, quality as well as systematic treatment of important knowledge factors [START_REF] Alwert | Wissensbilanz: Made in Germany. Leitfaden 2.0 zur Erstellung einer Wissensbilanz[END_REF]. Our method widely adopts this approach, but also acknowledges that in order to be managed subsequently, a more finegrained differentiation of knowledge types is necessary. First, we argue that the knowledge domain should be differentiated as previous research showed differences in the effects, development and acquisition of these different domain types [START_REF] Sammarra | Heterogeneity and Specificity of Inter-Firm Knowledge Flows in Innovation Networks[END_REF]. Thereby, our approach focuses on knowledge contents especially important for innovation, namely technological, market, managerial and regulatorys knowledge. Second, knowledge is embedded in different ways within the organization, in its members, procedures and structures or in tangible artifacts [START_REF] Argote | Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms[END_REF]. All these loci of knowledge interact multiplicatively, so that it is necessary for firms to manage all three. Finally, firms may draw on knowledge within the own organization or acquire it from diverse external sources. Based on the resulting 24 (4x3x2) general knowledge types to be assessed, our method takes a holistic but differentiated approach and includes various specific items and indicators for each of these types. After this, firms can compare theit knowledge base to the knowledge needs elicited from the bottom-up and topdown analysis. Particular attention should be turned on pressing knowledge needs, i.e. knowledge elements which have many linkages to others, change frequently or are shown to be causally important for innovation in the ideal profiles.

O -Outline a Plan for Knowledge Development and Acquisition

In the next step, the EPOS team must decide which deficiencies to prioritize and when and how to deal with them (see Figure 4). The summary of knowledge deficiencies from phase 2 serve as input for this step. First, the team should here assess overlaps between the concrete knowledge elements determined from bottom-up analysis with the general knowledge needs from top-down analysis. As the concrete elements also represent building blocks for the general organizational domain knowledge, these will also serve as starting points for general development. Second, deficiencies must be classified in order to determine appropriate action plans. Our method utilizes three factors for doing so: impact, rate of change and ease of improvement. Impact describes the degree to which the knowledge deficiency is seen to influence the firm's innovation performance, rate of change describes the volatility concerning the knowledge gap (e.g. because of technological progress) while ease of improvement describes how long and costly improvement efforts may be. Action strategies are based on these criteria and aim to allow for a focused and resource-efficient but still effective improvement via reasonable prioritization.

S -Seize the Implementation

In this final phase, the project team must select concrete measures for achieving the knowledge improvements (see Figure 5). Our tool comprises various concrete measures describing their value, limits and their range of application concerning the different knowledge domains (technological, market, managerial, regulatory) and loci of embeddedness (human, procedures/structures, artifacts). These should be compiled respective to the specific situation. Especially for highly relevant, somewhat volatile knowledge elements, a general recommendation is to configure internal and external means of knowledge development and acquisition in order to ensure uniqueness and thoroughness of knowledge on the one hand as well as flexibility and diversity on the other hand [START_REF] Argote | Knowledge Transfer: A Basis for Competitive Advantage in Firms[END_REF]. Additionally, the measure descriptions discuss the impact of resource or structural constraints specific to the context of utilities. This supports careful selection of methods as well as putting particular attention towards potential obstacles emerging in application.

Conclusion

Within this paper, we describe the development of the EPOS procedure, a management tool set allowing municipal energy providers to analyze, plan and develop their knowledge base configuration for addressing innovation in the energy sector, particularly with regard to digital innovation. The final tool thereby advances previous methodologies of strategic knowledge management and includes several distinguishing features which address core requirements drawn from previous research and practical experience. In particular, these features are reflected in the following phases and elements of the EPOS procedure: a) differentiated analysis of knowledge types in order to ensure a comprehensive understanding of knowledge needs and gaps as well as to determine adequate measures for improvement (R 1, R 2, R 3, R 6 ); b) the two-sided analysis approach which enriches purely problem-driven knowledge search with a strategic plan for the general set-up of the organizational knowledge base (R 4, R 5 ); c) blueprints for niche strategies as well as a prioritization scheme which allows firms to develop a focused and efficient improvement plan (R 8 ); d) industry-tailored catalogues of concrete indicators for each type of knowledge and concrete measures including information on their value and applicability for small and medium energy providers (R 1, R 2, R 3, R 7, R 9 ).

While first discussions with practitioners confirmed the usefulness of these distinctive features, we just started the validation process encompassing iterative assessment and refinement. As the EPOS procedure addresses an intangible, inherently complex but acutely crucial topic, these further refinements will largely address the trade-off between the level of functional detail in the tool and its ease of use. We hope that in the course of this paper, we were able to provide insight to our development procedure, highlight the theoretical assumptions which should shape tools for strategic knowledge management, outline the specific features of the prototypical EPOS procedure and hence stimulate considerations and discussions among managers and researchers in the energy sector.

R 4 :

 4 Explicate the strategic nature of the task of configuring one's organization's knowledge base

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. Comparison of target and actual organizational knowledge

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. Outlining the action plan

Fig. 5 .

 5 Fig. 5. Choosing concrete measures for implementation


Daniel Schöllhorn
email: daniel.schoellhorn@de.tuv.com

Daniel Iglhaut
email: daniel.iglhaut@de.tuv.com

Martin Waldburger
email: m.waldburger@wik.org

Matthias Wissner
email: m.wissner@wik.org

Future ICT-infrastructure for Smart Grids Potentials and Hurdles for a Co-operation between the Energy and Telecommunication Sector

Keywords: ICT, Infrastructure, Smart Grid, Infrastructure Deployment, Cooperation 1

For the deployment of future ICT-infrastructure within smart grids, a huge synergy potential between the telecommunication and the energy sector is expected. However, our analysis shows that there are substantial strategic hurdles to overcome in order to foster co-operation between communications providers and Distribution System Operators (DSOs) as there are various asymmetries among them. The main reason for co-operation among the energy and communications sector consists in assumed advantages, e.g. faster implementation of smart grid services and solutions. The regulatory framework, which is perceived to be in need of further clarification, has been identified as the main hurdle for co-operation, while technical issues are not as important. DSOs and communications providers showed substantially different opinions when it comes to their particular assessment of the co-operation potential between the two sectors. Additionally, this assessment also depends highly on the smart grid use case in question.

Introduction

In a decentralized world of energy generation and consumption, not only the data volume but also the number of data exchanging parties and devices will increase significantly. New business models and technical solutions will alter the interaction of all energy system participants on every level and scale [START_REF] Kienesberger | Synergiepotentiale in der IKT-Infrastruktur bei verschiedenen Smart Grid Anwendungen[END_REF]. Therefore the ICTinfrastructure has to evolve as well and provide the necessary communication solutions to allow for this evolution in the energy sector [START_REF]Expert Group 3 -Regulatory Recommendations for and Smart Grids Deployment[END_REF]. Within this context, one major task of significant complexity is the coordination between the energy and telecommunication sector. So far they have remained mostly separated and developed their respective positions and strategies on smart grids and deployment of e.g. metering infrastructures in parallel. However, there is a huge potential for synergies and cost savings in joint and co-operative approaches [START_REF]Kosten senken, Ausbau beschleunigen[END_REF] [START_REF] Tahon | Improving the FTTH business case-A joint telco-utility network rollout model[END_REF].

To address these challenges and shed light upon the potentials of a possible cooperation between the energy and telecommunication sector, the European Commission Directorate General for Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CONNECT) launched the project ENERGISE1 at the beginning of 2015. Until the end of March 2017, an extensive analysis of the European ICT-infrastructure deployment regarding smart grids will be carried out. The ultimate goal of the project is the development of a decision-making toolkit that will help all stakeholders to decide by objective parameters which deployment solutions are optimal under a given individual situation.

In literature, smart grids are widely discusses in various disciplines but hurdles in joint infrastructure deployment are not yet analyzed in detail. [START_REF] Zio | Uncertenties in smart grids behavior and modeling: Whar are the risks and vulnerabilities? How to analyze them?[END_REF] identified "technological, environmental, financial, social and political" aspects to be the challenges for future smart grid implementation [5, pp. 6318]. Although they consider other than just the technological challenges, they are not focusing on strategic cooperation. The Smart Grid Task Force established by the European commission published their first results of investigation in the year 2009. Starting with the investigation on smart meters, they focused on e-mobility and finally on the concept of smart grids. Splitting the work into five expert groups allowed for a more detailed look on specific topics. A recent report by the Joint Research Centre evaluated certain smart grids projects across Europe [START_REF] Giordano | Energy Evaluation of Smart Grid projects within the Smart Grid Task Force Expert Group 4 (EG4)[END_REF]. [START_REF] Tahon | Improving the FTTH business case-A joint telco-utility network rollout model[END_REF] analyzed the topic from the telecommunication perspective. They suggest enforcing cooperation between the energy and the telecommunication sector but do not focus mainly on the deployment of smart grids. In a current study, [START_REF] Aiello | How Energy Distribution Will Change: An ICT Perspective[END_REF] drive the focus more on the ICTinfrastructure on smart grids but do not highlight the hurdles in cooperation between the respective sectors [START_REF] Aiello | How Energy Distribution Will Change: An ICT Perspective[END_REF]. [START_REF] Gungor | A Survey on Smart Grid Potential Applications and Communication Requirements[END_REF] already claimed, the ICT-Infrastructure is crucial for the deployment of smart grids [START_REF] Gungor | A Survey on Smart Grid Potential Applications and Communication Requirements[END_REF]. In sum, there are various streams of literature on smart grids, but they are based on either the telecommunication or the energy view. Hence, a more interdisciplinary approach is favorable in theory as well as in practice. [START_REF] Pfeiffer | Digital transformation within the emobilty market-Learnings and insights from early market development[END_REF] In addition, no significant structural analysis about cross sectoral cooperation within those sectors is available so far.

The main topic of this paper evolves around the possible potentials and hurdles regarding approaches towards co-operation for joint infrastructure usage and deployment between the energy and telecommunication sector.

Survey concept

This paper focuses on the findings of a comprehensive online survey conducted in November and December 2015 among the project's target groups of communications providers (communications infrastructure /services), Distribution System Operators (DSOs), Transmission System Operators (TSOs), energy utilities (energy generation/trading/resale/solutions), manufacturers, research organisations and other compa-nies involved in the energy and telecommunication business. Hereby the DSOs and communications providers are the most important subgroups and are therefore defined as main target groups in the following.

Methodology and structure

Prior to the main survey, a short online survey among TSOs, DSOs and communications providers as was conducted. In addition, expert interviews with regulatory authorities and industrial stakeholders from the energy and communications sectors reviewed the structure of the survey and partly (re)phrased the individual questions and items. For final modifications and practical testing, two DSOs (from the main target group) were asked to pre-test the survey before it was published. The structure of the survey was designed to analyze responses of the main target groups as well as of specific subgroups separately. In order to reach a large variety of respondents from the energy and communications sector, relevant contact persons in enterprises, institutions and associations were identified via desk research. Individual invitations were sent by e-mail to the contact persons in the addressed enterprises and organizations. Additionally, the survey's domain was published on the ENERGISE website as well as in the ENERGISE LinkedIn group, and within the ENERGISE newsletter. This way, organizations outside of the main target groups could participate in the survey and thus add valid aspects to the picture across the European smart grid ecosystem.

The total number of responses (N=294) and an exhaustive geographical coverage of the European Union show, that the results of this survey mark an important statement in the discussion of infrastructure development for smart grids. Nevertheless the amount of responses cannot claim to statistically represent all European DSOs and communications providers. This non-representative character arises also from the fact that the European energy market structures still remain widely separated, fragmented and highly heterogeneous [START_REF] Jansen | A fragmented market on the way to harmonization? EU policy-making on renewable energy promotion[END_REF]; thus any statistically accurate depiction of the European smart grid ecosystem is barely feasible.2

Sample characteristics

The survey provides a comprehensive characterization of the European organisations involved in smart grid activities. 26 European member states are covered by at least one DSO and one communications provider (only in Estonia and Slovenia no DSO answered), while most of the European member states are covered by a substantial number of the main target groups. Figure 1 offers a graphical illustration of the survey's participants by country.

Fig. 1. European distribution of the respondents from the main target groups

In order to specify the sectoral structure of the respondents within the overall sample, respondents were given the possibility to describe the organisation they represent, based on the organisation's primary field of activity. The deduced sample characteristics by the type of company splits the division into subgroups as defined in section 1 above. Figure 2 shows the detailed sample and the representation of the different subgroups. With regard to the companies located in the energy sector, a separation between DSOs, TSOs and the subgroups which compete in a liberalized market environment such as energy generation, trading, resale, solutions was made. Communications providers were not split into subgroups. [12][13]. This approach facilitates a tangible comparison of the two main groups of interest for the project: DSOs and communications providers.

Rationale of the analysis

According to the literature review (see 1. Introduction), various expert interviews and on-site visits during the first project year, the authors deduced a two-dimensional rationale for the analysis: The first aspect covers the issues of co-operation between companies and sectors for developing and implementing new solutions and infrastructures. The second aspect deals with the question whether the respective communication infrastructure for smart grid applications should be dedicated to a single purpose (and separated from other purposes) or shared among different use cases and players.

A graphical representation of these two dimensions is depicted in figure 3 below. Hereby the vertical axis indicates the degree of co-operation varying from non-cooperative, purely competitive market environment to highly co-operative constructs like joint ventures. In between, all kind of co-operation levels can be thought of (e.g. sales partnerships or joint product developments) [START_REF] Bouncken | Management und Führung von Kooperationen -Management und Führung von Kooperationen: Theorie, Empirie und Gestaltung für Biotechnologieunternehmen[END_REF].

The horizontal axis indicates the mode of usage of the communication infrastructure. It covers the use of dedicated and shared infrastructure and reaches from communication solutions restricted to one use case operated by one company (e.g. DSOs' network monitoring infrastructure) up to using a shared medium, (e.g. as it is the case in mobile communications usage for smart meter readout). The depicted boxes in the matrix indicate potential scenarios on different levels. First of all, general joint deployment scenarios (with no necessary direct applicability for smart grids) are shown as examples in the upper left ("fiber deployment on electric poles") and on the upper right ("joint venture to deploy ICT"). Likewise, specific usecases in a smart grid environment can be located on the matrix as shown in the lower left (Use Case: Network security) and the upper right (Use Case: integrate new users) [START_REF]Functionalities of smart grids and smart meters[END_REF]. Lastly, the box in the lower right indicates the position of an "existing market based solution" for smart grid (e.g. smart meter read out) purposes that is already offered today by communications providers.

In practice, localization within the matrix can only act as an indicator and is therefore depicted by an area rather than by an absolute coordinate. For example, it must be taken into account that an approach for a solution might be considered differently on the scale of co-operation, depending on which of the involved parties is asked.

For the purpose of a detailed examination, the further analysis within this paper focuses on a detailed investigation on the type of interaction axis, though there is a logical link between the two aspects "usage of infrastructure" and "type of operation".

Deduction of Hypotheses:

According to the prior rationale, several hypotheses for further analysis were deduced. The most important are to be investigated in greater detail in the following section:

─ H1: The costs for deploying ICT infrastructure depend to large degree on digging costs (55 up to 80%). [START_REF] Tahon | Improving the FTTH business case-A joint telco-utility network rollout model[END_REF][16] [START_REF] Casier | A clear and balanced view on FTTH deployment costs[END_REF]Hence a huge saving potential can be realized in joint infrastructure deployment. Therefore "cost saving" will be the most important reason for co-operation for all main target groups. ─ H2: Technological issues are the main hurdles for co-operation ─ H3: The issue of "Strategic strengthening of the market position" will be especially important for the communications providers because they want to participate in the "digitalization of the energy sector" which is currently widely discussed [START_REF] Rusitschka | Big Data in the Energy and Transport Sectors[END_REF][19] ─ H4: "Political demand for co-operation" is perceived as an important reason by all stakeholders since the cost saving directive [20] that is aiming at joint infrastructure usage and deployment must be implemented by all member states in 2016. ─ H5: Significant differences in the assessed likeliness of co-operation are expected since the strategic goals are different for both sectors and communication services are valued asymmetrically. DSOs represent one customer out of many for communications providers; in contrast for DSOs, communications providers are a crucial partner for ICT-infrastructure. This asymmetry creates a complex framework for standardized commercial solutions and the use of existing infrastructures. ─ H6: DSOs need financial security for the risk of default of communication services provided by telecoms, which poses a significant hurdle for co-operation

Results

This section shows the survey results for all respondents and the two main subgroups (DSOs and communications provider) in particular.

Reasons and hurdles for co-operation

The strategic assessment of co-operation among the energy and communications sectors was analyzed by asking for significant reasons and hurdles for co-operation. The results below focus on the findings for the DSOs and communications provider subgroups. Additionally, the results for the overall outcome are serving as an indicator of deviation. The results of the comparison between the DSOs and the telecommunications providers are shown in figure 4 below.

Reasons for co-operation

Focusing on the top five selected options the evaluation of the overall response shows that 60.2% of the respondents selected "faster implementation" as the most important reason of co-operation, followed by the possibility to use "synergy effects during the infrastructure deployment" (46.3%). The option "financial pressure for cost savings" scored third with 44.9%. The importance of "synergy effects during operation" (40.5%) and "market positioning and strategic strengthening" (37.8%) were regarded as the fourth and fifth most important reasons.

The DSOs' evaluation of the main reasons has the same order as the overall results, expect for the fifth most important position: For DSOs, "increased customer access" plays a more important role than "market positioning and strategic strengthening". From the communications perspective, 62.7% of the respondents selected "faster implementation of new services/solutions" as the most important reason for cooperation between the different fields, followed by "strategic strengthening of the market position" (49.0%). In contrast to the DSOs, it becomes evident that "strategic strengthening of the market position" represents a much more relevant reason for cooperation. The notion of the strategic purpose is emphasized by the vast amount of communications providers that are planning smart grid activities within the next two years (82% of all communications providers).

Hurdles for co-operation

The second set of questions on the strategic assessment of co-operation dealt with the identification of the most relevant hurdles for co-operation. Focusing on the top five selected options, the evaluation of the overall response showed that 57.8% se-lected "unclear regulatory responsibilities" as the biggest hurdle, followed by an "unclear market design" and "different standards for energy and telecommunication demands" with 42.2% each. The option "difficult liability and responsibility in data security and data protection" scored fourth (40.5%), whereas "dependency on cooperation partners" was selected by 32.0% of the respondents.

The apparent focus of DSOs on "unclear regulatory responsibilities" is by far the biggest hurdle (58.2%). The next important hurdles are "difficult liability and responsibility in data security and data protection" (40.5%) and "dependency on cooperation partners"(39.2%). The items "different standards for energy and telecommunication demands" (31.6%) and the "unclear market design" (29.1%) are also considered as relevant hurdles and score fourth and fifth.

The responding communications providers also regard "unclear regulatory responsibilities" as the biggest hurdle, selected by 56.9% of the respondents. "Unclear market design" scores second (47.1%), although the distance between first and second choice is notably smaller in comparison to the DSOs. The options "different standards for energy and telecommunication" and "difficult liability and responsibility in data security and data protection" are also considered as relevant barriers by 43.1% and 41.2% respectively. The next important hurdle is the item "higher complexity in ownership of the infrastructure" (39.2%).

Assessment of co-operation per use case

To be able to assess the level of co-operation among the subgroups for specific smart grid applications, six different use cases were provided in the questionnaire to allow for a more detailed investigation [21][22]. The use cases are consistent with the work of the European Commission's Smart Grid Task Force [START_REF] Kienesberger | Synergiepotentiale in der IKT-Infrastruktur bei verschiedenen Smart Grid Anwendungen[END_REF] and defined as follows:

1. Enabling and encouraging stronger and more direct involvement of consumers in their energy usage and management 2. Improving market functioning and customer service 3. Enabling better planning of future network investment 4. Ensuring network security, system control and quality of supply 5. Enhancing efficiency in day-to-day grid operation 6. Enabling the network to integrate users with new requirements When considering the assessments whether specific use cases are likely to be implemented co-operatively or non-co-operatively, the great majority of respondents assumed co-operation between the energy and communications sector for each of the use cases (cf. figure 5). The percentage of all respondents assuming co-operation differs between 50.7% ("Network Planning") and 63.3% per use case ("Enabling network security"). The percentages of those who assume no co-operation differ between 22.4% and 30.3%. Less than 20% of the respondents did not know whether the two sectors would cooperate or not. Regarding the different answers from the relevant subgroups, respondents from the communications providers group are more likely to assume that the use case will be implemented in co-operation: more than 51% of them assume co-operation for each use case. The picture changes when the DSOs are in focus. Especially considering the use cases "Enhancing efficiency in day-to-day grid operation" and "Enabling better planning of future network investment" the percentage of DSO respondents who assume that there will no co-operation between the two sectors is significantly higher than the percentage of those who assume co-operation (cf. figure 6).

Analysis of the results and conclusions

Assessment of reasons for co-operation:

The most important insight throughout all results and subgroups is that there is a significant overall consent on the need of cross-sectoral co-operation. When examining the results more closely, it becomes evident, that "speed of implementation" is the most important reason for co-operation. This leads to the conclusion that a pressure to act is widely perceived by the main target groups. In addition, "synergy effects during deployment" are generally more important than "synergy effects during operation". The assigned relevance of the aspects of "financial pressure", the possibility of "generating new revenues" as well as "strategic positioning" and "increased customer access" are the most volatile issues and vary among the subgroups.

The results illustrate that the respondents emphasized more concrete aspects with direct advantages (like the speed of implementation) in contrast to more abstract reasons such as "political demand". At least when considering that the directive to reduce the cost of deploying high-speed electronic communications networks [START_REF] Tahon | Cost allocation model for a synergetic cooperation in the rollout of telecom and utility networks[END_REF] needs to be implemented by the EU member states until July 2016, the low ranking of the political aspects appears surprising 4 . With the same notion, it was not expected that financial pressure is outweighed for all subgroups by the speed of implementation as the most important reason for co-operation.

In the cross-sectoral analysis it was proven that communications providers are more likely to assume that smart grid use cases are realized in co-operation than the DSOs. This originates in the different strategic initial position: since communications providers wish to strengthen their market position, they strive to enter the energy sector by offering their core competencies not only in "classical" communications services, but also in future internet of things (IoT) applications and services that will supposedly alter the European energy system in the mid-term range. Accordingly they also emphasize the speed of implementation as a driver for co-operation.

Assessment of hurdles for co-operation:

When looking at the overall results, unclear regulatory responsibilities outweigh all other considered hurdles by far. This holds true for all subgroups. Besides the issue of different standards, all the other top-ranked main hurdles happen to originate in the legal realm.

There are some significant differences among the other potential barriers when comparing the main subgroups DSOs and communications providers. While DSOs perceive dependencies on co-operation partners as a hurdle, communications providers do not. Though DSOs are in favor of co-operation for four out of six use cases, they fear unfavorable short and long-term consequences. Especially the use cases "Enhancing efficiency in day-to-day grid operation" and "Enabling better planning of future network investment" are perceived to be realized non-co-operative since they belong to their core realm of operations. In standard economics, these issues are analyzed in game theory [START_REF] Rapoport | Prisoner's Dilemma[END_REF] or within the principal-agent framework [START_REF] Grossmann | An Analysis of the Principal-Agent Problem[END_REF]. Accordingly companies might be restrained of co-operation; due to asymmetric information, cooperation can lead to conflicts of interests, strategic losses and dependencies. Those differences and dependencies reveal considerable constraints for future cross-sectoral co-operation.

Generally the results support the asymmetric valuation of communications services, as the more co-operation-restrained DSOs prove. In addition, the variations between the responses by the different subgroups that were analyzed during this survey might also indicate a different interpretation of the terms provided. Different sectoral languages were observed during the survey and expert interviews that were gathered complementary. Furthermore the respective understanding of the other side´s business drivers and constraints can be a crucial hurdle.

Discussion of the hypotheses:

As elaborated above, the hypotheses can now be investigated and proven as follows:

Table 1. Analysis of the hypotheses

Summary & Outlook

A general positive outlook on the potential of co-operation is strongly underlined by the data collected during the survey. The relative consistency in the respective perception of co-operation indicates that the appointed main reasons and hurdles that matter

H1

"Cost saving" will be the most important reason for co-operation for all main target groups. Must be rejected

H2

Technological issues are the main hurdles for cooperation Must be rejected

H3

"Political demand for co-operation" is perceived as a important reason by all stakeholders Must be rejected

H4

Significant differences in the assessed likeliness of co-operation are expected since the strategic goals are different for both sectors and communication services are valued asymmetrically.

Supported by the tendency of the DSOs not to assume co-operation for their coreoperations

H5

DSOs need financial security for the risk of default of communication services provided by telecoms, which poses a significant hurdle for cooperation Supported by the tendency of the DSOs not to assume co-operation for their coreoperations

H6

The issue of "Strategic strengthening of the market position" will be especially important for the communications providers Confirmed to all stakeholders should be addressed with priority by political actors and private companies to foster co-operation. Coincidently, the differences between the reasons and hurdles among the subgroups point out the varying interests and points of origin for the involved industry sectors. As long as financial pressure is not the main driver for co-operation, there must be financial latitude for most of the companies to develop non-co-operative infrastructure; likewise, the political demand for saving costs is not perceived by the respondents as penetrating as intended by legal authorities. Another important fact is that technological issues (such as lifecycles, are not the main hurdles for co-operation; instead the main hurdles happen to originate in the legal realm.

Overall, the analysis of the survey assumes that the energy market is about to change and speed up quite significantly. However, there are substantial strategic hurdles to overcome in order to enforce co-operation between communications providers and DSOs as there are various asymmetries among them. Nonetheless, the main reason for co-operation among the energy and communications sectors emerged to consist in assumed advantages as regards faster implementation of smart grids.

Especially the topics addressed in hypotheses H5 and H6 are of interest for future research. The investigation and better understanding of asymmetrical valuation communication services can help to overcome the perceived hurdles. Additionally the legal and regulatory realm must be investigated more closely with a special focus on the question how incentives for DSOs to co-operate can be induced more efficiently while maintaining the goals of security of supply.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Structure of respondents (n=294)

3

 3

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. Co-operation modes and infrastructure usage between energy and telco sector

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. Top 5 reasons and hurdles for co-operation for DSOs and communications providers

Fig. 5 .

 5 Fig. 5. Assumed co-operation for each use case over all respondents (n=294)

Fig. 6 .

 6 Fig. 6. Assumed co-operation for each use case separated by communications providers (n=51) and DSOs (n=79)

http://project-energise.eu/

The number of TSOs, DSOs and communications provider differs significantly from member state to member state. Since the National Regulation Authorities are mostly independent, regulatory schemes differ highly between countries. Thus, comparisons in terms of proportions can hardly be made because of the lacking of a joint point of reference. Additionally, the response rates are relatively high compared other relevant studies [cf. 10, p. 50].

Because of the targeted low threshold in terms of generating a high return and easy access of the survey, detailed definitions for the terms "co-operative", "non-co-operative", "shared" and "dedicated" were not provided within the questionnaire of the survey.

The directive does not directly affect smart grid issues. However, it determines a wide array of politically induced co-operation among DSOs, utilities and communications providers thatat least in the mid-term runalso affect aspects of ICT-deployment for smart grids