In conversation with Nauman Afsar on driving digital transformation in Middle East’s energy sector

A leading name in this field, Oracle Utilities brings over 50 years of expertise in delivering scalable, customer-centric energy systems. This interview finds Nauman Afsar, Regional Vice President for MEA & Türkiye at Oracle Utilities, discusses how they help the region’s energy sector advance their digital transformation journey.

On one side of the story, there’s a global push towards clean energy. On the other, there’s continuously rising demand. In the Middle East, in particular, increasing population, urbanisation, and accelerating electric vehicle (EV) adoption are key drivers. In this setting, utilities play a crucial role in balancing growth with sustainability. 

A leading name in this field, Oracle Utilities brings over 50 years of expertise in delivering scalable, customer-centric energy systems. Today, they focus on helping businesses unlock renewable energy potential and advance decarbonisation efforts. This interview finds Nauman Afsar, Regional Vice President for MEA & Türkiye at Oracle Utilities, discusses how they help the region’s energy sector advance their digital transformation journey.

Interviewer: How is Oracle Utilities leading digital transformation in the energy sector across the Middle East?

Mr. Afsar: For over 50 years, Oracle has been solving some of the world’s most complex problems using data. Today, our digital solutions are helping the Middle East’s largest utilities achieve a scalable, customer-centric energy system that supports the global transition towards clean energy. 

Our data-driven solutions are helping the region’s leading utilities implement advanced metering infrastructure, which is unlocking a host of digital transformation outcomes — spanning customer growth, enhanced service, and decarbonisation.

In terms of customer growth, our cloud-based meter data management solution (MDMS) has helped one Oracle customer in the Middle East scale to over 11 million meters in production, with half a million more forecast in the year ahead. Oracle can easily accommodate this uplift alongside the 1.6 trillion meter reads our solutions already analyse each year.

Yet, scale is just the tip of the iceberg. Our customer-to-network platform connects customer, meter, and device data points to give utilities a complete picture of their customer accounts. The result is better billing accuracy, which protects utilities’ revenues while improving customer satisfaction. 

Digital transformation goes hand-in-hand with another transformation countries in the Middle East are prioritising: decarbonisation. With ample sunshine, the region’s solar energy potential is high. Our MDMS’ net-metering capability is helping utilities and their customers tap this renewable energy source by allowing prosumers to sell residential solar energy back to the grid to boost utilities’ generation capacity. 

From growth to green energy, Oracle is leading the way towards a scalable, clean, and customer-centric energy sector in the Middle East.

Interviewer: As the regional vice president for MEA & Türkiye at Oracle Utilities, what do you think are the major energy challenges that your company can address in the region, and how do you plan to tackle them?

Mr. Afsar: Balancing energy demand versus generation capacity is a challenge across the region, yet the reasons vary between territories. 

In the Gulf, rising demand is being driven by population growth, EV adoption, urban development, and an influx of migrant workers and tourists. In Africa, demand is growing as more communities are connected to the grid as individual countries make progress towards achieving universal access to electricity. In both cases, rising demand strains capacity. Tackling this is a case of reducing consumption and boosting generation. Oracle helps utilities do both. 

Our data-driven customer-to-meter solutions help utilities shape load through dynamic pricing mechanisms, including time-of-use billing, which rewards customers for using energy outside of peak demand. The impact is enhanced through our world-leading energy efficiency platform, Oracle Opower, which combines customer data and behavioural science to generate personalised energy efficiency prompts to help customers use less and save money. 

Yet, demand response is only one side of the equation. When utilities need to boost generation, our solutions equip them to call upon customer-owned devices — such as residential solar, EVs, and battery systems — to meet demand. Oracle Utilities Digital Asset Cloud Service (DACS) supports the enrolment of customers’ devices to form virtual power plants. It also analyses these devices’ properties so utilities can understand their availability, output, and safe operating limits.

Together, these digital solutions give utilities the visibility and control they need to balance supply and demand based on their territories’ unique needs.

Interviewer: When talking about energy, sustainability, and renewable energy are key focal points. How is Oracle integrating them into its solutions?

Mr. Afsar: Oracle’s solutions are helping utilities expand their networks’ renewable energy capacity and execute energy efficiency initiatives. 

In terms of renewable energy, Oracle’s DERMS solution is designed to facilitate the rapid expansion of distributed energy resources like photovoltaic cells and wind turbines onto existing networks. Our solution helps to manage the flow of power from these devices, where the supply and demand of energy is volatile. Utilities around the world use our DERMS to maximise the output of their renewable resources. In fact, on the island of Ireland alone, our solutions manage approximately 25TWh of renewable generation. 

Our DACS solution lets utilities build on this capacity further by tapping into clean energy resources beyond those they directly own. It manages the registration of customer-owned devices, such as residential solar and battery systems, so these assets can be combined to form virtual power plants.

In addition, Oracle Opower has helped to conserve 37 TWh of energy since 2009. Today, more than 175 utilities help customers reduce energy usage with Opower solutions.

Interviewer: Can you share a successful Oracle Utilities project in the region that highlights your commitment to sustainability and innovation?

Mr. Afsar: Oracle works with some of the leading energy and water utilities in the Middle East, including Abu Dhabi National Energy Company (TAQA) and National Water Company in Saudi Arabia. We’ve helped some of the region’s most respected utilities make breakthroughs in distinct areas.

Our cloud-based metering solution has helped one of the region’s largest electricity companies expand their metering operations to 11 million meters across the Middle East and North Africa. Our solution has improved meter data reliability, which is driving better billing accuracy and targeted energy efficiency initiatives.

With customers in the hottest countries on Earth, tackling water scarcity is high on our agenda, too. We helped one of the Middle East’s preeminent water companies drive conservation efforts through smart metering, a rarity in the water sector. This helps eliminate non-revenue water while improving billing accuracy so customers are accountable for how much water they use. 

We’ve also helped one of Africa’s most prominent energy companies control costs. Our customer-to-meter solution supported the company’s smart meter rollout with a focus on addressing non-technical losses. Together, this has helped the company improve revenue collection while streamlining back-office processes.

These are just a handful of projects where Oracle has introduced innovations that are helping the region’s utilities unlock customer growth, conservation efforts, and cost savings.

 

Nauman Afsar is one of the speakers at the 49th Middle East Energy, happening from April 7 to 9, 2025, at the Dubai World Trade Centre. 

The event, held under the patronage of the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, convenes leading energy experts, innovators, and key players from around the globe to spark innovation, foster collaboration, and shape the future of energy. It’s a premier international trade event for the power industry, covering various topics, such as energy generation, transmission, distribution, and storage. Register now!