The Kokkola Model Became a Phenomenon: “We Were Involved in Ensuring the Project Reached Completion”
In 2022, Kokkola Energy launched a model that guaranteed electricity at a lower price than market rates for the city’s residents. It was also a test for the Synerall system and its experts.
When electricity prices skyrocketed in the fall of 2022, Kokkola decided to act. Kokkola Energy developed a new price cap product, with which the city’s residents would pay a maximum of 16 cents plus VAT per kilowatt-hour for electricity.
The maneuver was made possible because the company owns the electricity transmission network and produces its own electricity.
“The decision probably meant terrible losses for Kokkola Energy. At the beginning of last October, the price for existing contracts would have been over 46 cents per kilowatt-hour. However, they wanted to offer a really good deal to the residents of their own city”
Synerall's system enabled mass runs
Kokkola Energy commissioned Synerall to go through the contracts. It was a big task, as the energy company decided to terminate all existing contracts not within their own network area. The job had to be completed in a few weeks.
“The boundaries of the network area do not follow the city limits. The biggest task was going through the contracts by postal code areas. Finally, we processed the terminations en masse”
The success of such a large-scale operation is not a given. However, Synerall’s system allows for the extraction of files, processing of large masses, and their delivery to the Datahub. In the Kokkola case, the number of terminated contracts was significant.
The Celebrated Model Does Not Fit Everywhere
The project schedule was maintained, but there were some setbacks. “We processed all contracts so that they would be terminated. However, there were some canceled contracts that were not in force. We had to process and run them again, but we stayed on schedule despite this.” Since then, the “Kokkola Model” has been adopted in other localities. It has received praise, although the model is only suitable for municipally owned electricity companies with their own network. “It was really interesting for Synerall's experts to be involved in a project that no one had implemented before. Synerall was involved in ensuring that the job was done.” Petri Juhala is particularly pleased that Synerall immediately assigned a high-level system expert to the project. “Solid industry expertise was really needed and enabled us to genuinely cooperate with the client.”
