Petr Hermann, Schneider Electric: A clear pathway leading to resilience, efficiency, and sustainability

Discovering the dynamic landscape of innovation and adaptability, Petr Hermann, the Cluster President CEO for South East Europe at Schneider Electric, shares insights into the latest initiatives driving operational efficiency and sustainability in Romania and the broader region. From groundbreaking collaborations in healthcare infrastructure to the transformative impact of automation and digitization, Hermann provides a comprehensive view of Schneider Electric’s role in reshaping the energy and technological landscape across South East Europe.

What are the latest Schneider Electric projects in Romania and how does the regional organization help capture the evolving customer needs here?

Romania holds a special place in the Schneider Electric family, having been a vital part of our journey for over 26 years. Our team here is very skilled, understands the industry innovations and can integrate all our latest solutions, equipment, and services to meet our customer needs.

Here in particular, our subsidiary has established strong international collaborations with clients in the automotive segment, with major retailers and not to forget about the healthcare segment. We have successfully equipped several factories and commercial facilities in Romania with Schneider Electric’s cutting-edge technologies, and we are now part of a large-scale upgrade of the Romanian healthcare infrastructure, in both the private and public health sector.

The mindset of our colleagues everywhere is international, and this reflects in the way projects are put together and implemented. Just to give you a couple of examples: A few years back, we collaborated with eMAG for their largest logistics center near Bucharest and this year, we worked together again, this time in Budapest. Our construction partner was a German company with a very active Romanian subsidiary.

Another interesting project was the one in Vaslui where we contributed to the upgrade of the city public transportation. This pilot project was a successful blend of our global solutions, the expertise of our local team and the collaboration with a Ukrainian entity.

Moving forward, and expanding on existing contracts, we offer our clients the possibility to ”Try and Buy” our equipment. This has been a sales model that enables customers in Romania and in the region to benefit from new innovative technologies that are not yet well know on the market. We provide companies our equipment – such as our active filters for power factor correction – by “lending” them initially, and selling them after an agreed period, once the advantages in the electricity invoice, reduced downtime or defaults in machinery are clear. The top segments we see benefiting from this are industrial facilities, retail, and commercial buildings.

We know Schneider Electric to be a global leader in solutions for energy efficiency. How much does operational efficiency increase after the implementation of Schneider Electric solutions?

This is a question we receive very often, particularly now when all businesses are concerned about their operational costs and try to optimize. Our impact would largely depend on the nature of the business, the starting conditions and of course, on the solutions implemented. The more we are allowed to do, the more savings we can generate.

However, what we see in Romania lately is that we are involved more often in projects from the design stage, which is great, because we can recommend complete solutions and achieve most savings if we do so. When comparing two similar projects from the same industry, one built the “traditional way” and the other one incorporating our new systems and solutions, savings can be anywhere between 15-30%.

However, you can see those savings also when we are completing a retrofitting project. Solutions such as electric heat pumps, thermostats, sensors, and software that can optimize things like lighting, heating, and air-conditioning can reduce the energy demand of buildings by around 30%. When we also include occupancy management to total smart solution, then the operational efficiency increase of the building can go far beyond this. Apart from buildings, we can also improve a lot on the operational efficiency of various processes. Here improvement depends on the process itself and the depth of its modernization. We are always keen to show the benefits, because as of today, the pace of modernization is very slow, and speeding up the decarbonization would be beneficial for all parties involved.

Apart from the efficiency that our systems and solutions generate over time, there is also the question of how all modernized technology is managed. This is where we can generate significant additional benefits: our solutions can work remote, they enable experts to be on call and actively respond as often as needed, they prevent downtime and provide a vastly superior level of operational safety and efficiency.

To what extent do companies recognize the importance of such solutions and to what extent do they implement them?

Businesses in South-East Europe are well informed about the benefits of automation and digitization in all aspects of the operations, especially in the energy-related ones. However, the world is changing and lately, changes have been massive and quick. There was one push that was generated by COVID and overnight digitalization. There was another push that was generated by the geopolitical situation, that created surges in the prices of fuel and energy. There is another one, just as significant, caused by the spread of the AI, which feeds on electricity and requires more and more efficient data centers.

So, it’s clear that efficiency is no longer just “nice to have” and sustainability is much more than just a PR concept. Companies need to realize quickly that they need to constantly review their expenses, processes, their entire business infrastructure, to optimally face such new situations.

To give you just one example, hybrid work has determined many businesses to reconsider their office footprint and not only that. They moved out from buildings that were expensive operationally and rented smaller spaces in more efficient buildings. And in some cases that is still not enough, as hybrid work programs tend to be rather unpredictable, people like to come to work on Tuesdays, but not so much on Fridays, so you still have widely fluctuating occupancy even in that smaller office space you rented. How do you cope with that? How do you manage the building to be able to charge its tenant a rent, which is in accordance with the usage, rather than the surface? This will probably become a point of difference soon enough and with our automation solutions, we are here to help.

How do the countries in South-East Europe cope with this changing reality?

Every time I speak to media in all South-East Europe countries, I use the opportunity to encourage businesses to act now and not to postpone the start of a complete and strategic digital overhaul. Romania has seen the benefits of leaping forward. For years it has been in the global Top 5 fastest broadband countries. Broadband infrastructure was a tremendous base for many businesses to build – IT, banking, technology, communication, entertainment, retail. We are at another crucial point where countries that leap forward invest for the future. So, I would say, Romanians should learn from their own experience and not be afraid to invest in those areas that will support growth later down the road.

As far as the situation in other countries of the region is concerned, I would say that each of them is progressing well in certain areas. A point of concern is, for example, older buildings, present all around the region and all-around Europe. I am talking about buildings completed some 20- 30 years ago, when standard construction requirements were very different. And now it shows, so we must bring them up to date. We made it our mission to develop solutions that work with existing equipment and electrical infrastructure, because you cannot just discard buildings, you need to retrofit, to make them more efficient.

Newly constructed buildings, such as commercial facilities, hotels etc., as well as big production sites are catching up with the latest technology in the whole region. Energy management, automation solutions, building management systems and complete services and maintenance solutions that make all operational costs much more predictable, are nowadays a usual thing.

What is the way forward? What are the key directions of innovation?

Especially on the side of energy consumption but also on the side of overall operational efficiency of big enterprises, there is one clear pathway leading to resilience, efficiency, and sustainability: electrification to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, achieved through more renewables, and digitization that will drive efficiency and will allow companies to make energy more visible and have a clearer understanding on how energy is used. All the necessary technology is already available today and it is a matter of fast adoption that will secure the path to more sustainable corporations. Of course, regulation can help here by introducing specific policies that will encourage good practice.

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