A high level overview of SAP IS-U components is as below:

  Basic Functions: 
This component is used to manage addresses and regional structures along with
generating dates and schedule for meter readings, billing and budget billings. 
Just for understanding, a over simplified example of regional structure is Country--
>State-->District--> City in the context of India or Country --> County --> City for
UK.
  Master Data: 
In order to manage data that remains fixed for long period of time and is referenced by
related transactions. In SAP IS-U, this data includes:
o Business Master Data: as Business Partners, Contract Accounts & Contracts.
To make a perception, master data that is related with participating people
( e.g. Customers ), organisations and agreements (contract) can be classified
as Business Master Data. A Contract gets created at the time of customer
Move-in (joining) and it also links Business and Technical Master Data.

o Technical Master Data: as Connection Objects ( Buildings & Real estate ) and
the premises, installations and device locations contained within connection
object. PoD - Point of Delivery is the location where utility services are
rendered and PoD id is used to identify it uniquely.
Technical master data is related with identification of the building, delivery
point, devices and its installation.

 SAP IS-U / CCS - Features - Billing & Device Management

  Device Management: 
This component manages the installations, meter reading, and the certification of all
devices for a utility company. Devices can be a electric meter or Gas meter etc. 
Device Management of SAP IS-U is integrated with SAP PM ( Plant Maintenance ).
Device is an instrument to measure consumption, processing data or controlling and
protecting other instruments. Devices are identified using material and srl number and
are managed in PM as pieces of equipment with serial numbers.
  Billing: 
This component is used for billing the standard divisions like electricity, gas, water /
waste water, district heating, and multimedia services( e.g. Cable TV ) 
SAP IS-U billing is integrated with FI-CA, Accounts Receivable & Payable and it
manages postings from billing and budget billing requests.
  Invoicing: 
SAP IS-U Invoicing enables grouping of bills before sending it to customer. Also, it
handles extra fee / tax charging requirements. 
e.g. If one customer is taking services from both the divisions, electricity as well Gas or
has multiple contracts, then as per the requirement, bills can be grouped into one
invoice.

 SAP IS-U / CCS - Features - Customer Service

  Customer Service: 
This component provides centralized and easy access to customer data, through one
screen, called Customer Interaction Center(CIC) or Front Office. By using CIC / Front
Office, Customer service operator can also start the frequently used business processes
at the request of customer. 

These processes, called a workflow, are generally a sequence of activities with

dependencies and are performed by several people.
e.g. A request by the customer for a new connection will require a series of steps like
creation of business & technical master data and then execution of move-in to create a
contract. 

Further, this will be a lot more complex in case of a change of supplier ( not a new
connection ) as a lot of data exchange between the service providers ( winner & looser
suppliers) and Transmission Company is required.

 SAP IS-U - Features - IDE

  IDE - Intercompany Data Exchange: 

Before deregulation of utilities sector, the companies were used to be vertically
Integrated having �bundled� businesses (i.e. Generation, Transmission, and
Distribution) under a tightly integrated holding company/operating company model.
Hence all data from all parts of the value chain were accessible to all parts of the
company.

But after deregulation, companies are now split into individually operating, self
accounting units for generation, transmission, distribution, and supply. So, data that
was previously contained in a single system is now distributed amongst the different
operating units in the value chain. In order to obtain all data needed to complete
processing, companies must share data between systems.

IDE, an add-on to SAP IS-U/CCS provides a mechanism to effectively exchange and

control data between service providers' systems. Actual transfer of data is done
through Standard SAP's EDI / IDOC communication and hence in a sense IDE is a layer
above EDI/IDoc functionality. IDE covers the areas below:

o Administration of deregulation data: 

It includes PoD, Grids, Point of delivery Services and Service Providers. 

o Process Execution - Communication Control 

To send and receive data for certain events. It uses PoD to determine the
sender, receiver and the information to be sent along with the required
format. 

o Management of Data Exchange Processes