*Written by Andres Olt, published in Tidningen Energi in November 2018
Estonia has made a lot of progress in terms of digital services and solutions, when it comes to the introduction of the electricity market data hub. Five years ago, the state company Elering AS founded the Estonian Data Hub. The owners, electricity companies, and manufacturers, as well as distribution and transmission officials, have all been overwhelmingly positive about their experience.
Estonia is today one of the world’s leading nations when it comes to digitization.
For example: Estonia offers hundreds of e-services to its citizens and thousands of companies. Estonia’s innovative e-citizenship to foreign citizens and Estonia largely being covered by free wireless Internet are two other noteworthy examples of the country’s disruptive approach to online technologies.
You can also vote online and sign most documents digitally. In addition, Estonia is using block-chain technology for databases in healthcare and many other fields. Estonia has also enjoyed success with many well-known IT solutions such as Skype, which was first developed in its capital, Tallinn.
The Estonian electrical Data Hub
The Estonian electrical Data Hub was put into use on January 1, 2013. The work was performed in stages. The development of the Data Hub took place remarkably quickly, in less than a year, although the first version offered only basic functions. Later, it was developed, step-by-step, with, for example, a service with a common invoice for power network charges and consumption.
The processes in the Data Hub are simple and “thin” and the data exchange interface is therefore easy to operate for developers. This enabled the rapid integration of customer and supplier management in relation to billing at the electricity trading companies.
Data hub and Synerall
Sven Pitkve, Electrical Business Manager at Imatra Elekter AS in Estonia, which formerly belonged to Fortum, is extremely satisfied with the possibilities offered by the Estonian Data Hub and its outcome.
In recent years, we have done a lot to make our processes more automatic and efficient, and today there are only around three people who handle everything about electricity trading for about 30,000 customers, says Sven.
We use Synerall system for all data management, billing and marketing and the processes have a very high level of automation. Customers can see their consumption either on our website or in the Data Hub. In the Data Hub, they can also approve or authorize suppliers.
An interesting consequence is that many of Imatra’s customers have chosen spot price/hour, which gives lower margins but also lower risks. Over time, the amount of data has also increased and today there can be up to eleven parameters for a measurement point, which gives Imatra Elekter a very good opportunity to tailor the solutions and offers for customers.
We must learn to understand the value of the consumption data, how to involve the customers and make them think of their consumption patterns, concludes Sven.
