Empowering Renewable Energy Adoption in Austria with a Cloud-Native Platform on AWS

 

Overview

 

 

Burgenland Energie, the primary energy utility in the Burgenland region of Austria, serves a population of 293,000 residents. As part of its mission to deliver sustainable energy solutions, Burgenland Energie launched Krone Sonne—a joint venture with Austria’s largest newspaper, Krone Zeitung. The initiative empowers residents to harness renewable energy by providing turnkey solar power systems installed on residential rooftops. 

 

To support Krone Sonne's operations and customer services, Burgenland Energie required a scalable, cloud-native platform that could meet the project’s sustainability goals while ensuring seamless service delivery. To achieve this, Burgenland Energie partnered with ByteSource Technology Consulting to build an agile, serverless infrastructure on Amazon Web Services (AWS).

 

 

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Opportunity

 

The global climate crisis has led to a critical need for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Organizations worldwide are under pressure to cut carbon emissions, with energy producers like Burgenland Energie at the forefront of this effort. To address these challenges, Burgenland Energie aimed to provide residents with accessible renewable energy options that would significantly reduce their carbon footprints. Krone Sonne was conceived as a solution to this challenge. By offering solar power systems to homeowners, Burgenland Energie sought to make renewable energy adoption more widespread, thereby contributing to the reduction of greenhouse gases in Austria.

 

 

 

The solution

 

To develop the IT infrastructure for Krone Sonne, ByteSource Technology Consulting was eventually brought on board. Given the project’s emphasis on sustainability, it was crucial that the platform itself be eco-friendly and scalable to meet growing demands. 

 

ByteSource recommended leveraging AWS for its energy efficiency, flexibility, and ability to rapidly scale cloud-native applications. 

 

Working closely with Burgenland Energie, ByteSource designed and implemented a serverless, microservices-based architecture using AWS services. Key components of the solution included: 

 

  • AWS Lambda: Enabled the execution of serverless, event-driven code, eliminating the need for Burgenland Energie to manage traditional servers.
  • Lambda@Edge: Optimized the delivery of static content by running code closer to users, thereby enhancing performance and reducing latency.
  • Amazon CloudFront: Utilized as a content delivery network (CDN) to ensure high performance and security for the platform's customer-facing applications.
  • Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS): Provided container orchestration to efficiently manage and scale the containerized applications running Krone Sonne’s business processes. In just two weeks, ByteSource stood up the necessary environments for Krone Sonne, enabling the initiative to go live swiftly. This rapid deployment was crucial in meeting the tight timelines and ensuring the platform was ready to handle customer interactions as soon as the service launched.

 

The outcome

 

Since its launch in 2022, Krone Sonne has successfully installed over 2,500 solar systems on residential rooftops across Austria. The cloud-native platform developed by ByteSource enabled residents to design their solar power systems, place orders, and receive customer support through a seamless online experience. 

 

The integration between customer-facing services and backend systems ensured that orders were processed smoothly, installations were completed efficiently, and all necessary records were accurately updated. The platform's ability to scale effortlessly, particularly during peak times, demonstrated the effectiveness of the architecture designed by ByteSource.

 

To date, Krone Sonne’s solar panels have generated approximately 20 gigawatt hours of renewable energy, significantly contributing to Austria’s renewable energy goals. This energy production has prevented around 2.8 tons of CO2 emissions—equivalent to the amount of carbon dioxide that would be captured by 315,000 trees—underscoring the environmental impact of the initiative.

 

Conclusion

 

The Krone Sonne project is a testament to the power of cloud-native solutions in driving sustainability initiatives. Through the partnership with ByteSource Technology Consulting, Burgenland Energie was able to quickly and effectively launch a scalable platform that not only met its business needs but also aligned with its environmental goals.

 

ByteSource’s expertise in AWS services played a critical role in the success of Krone Sonne, demonstrating the potential for cloud technologies to support large-scale renewable energy projects. This case study highlights the importance of innovative IT solutions in the global effort to combat climate change and transition to a more sustainable future.

 

 

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