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It may not be bigger than a mid-sized European city when you look at its population, but Estonia can pride itself on being one of the most innovative countries in Europe. Indeed, according to the European Innovation Scoreboard, it is one of the fastest innovators. It’s ranked number one within the EU in digital public services and has the largest number of unicorn companies per capita. 

With regard to the energy sector, it is the first EU country to boast a 100% smart meter rollout for its power market, and has the most effective energy market regulation within the bloc. Furthermore, it was among the first countries to launch energy market data hubs covering both power and gas segments.

In short, Estonia is undoubtedly a leader in digital innovation, which makes it a particular honor for Navitasoft to have been selected to provide the new architecture and technology for Estfeed Datahub. 

A look back - and ahead

The first European data hubs were introduced in the early 2010s and, over the past decade, it has become clear that their business functionalities can secure considerable improvement in service quality and make markets more competitive. Over the same period, however, IT technology has advanced so much that now there are more efficient, cost-saving technologies available. They provide an incentive to discontinue the development of existing platforms and to continue offering the tried-and-true business functionalities but supported by a completely new IT architecture.

Incidentally, Elering, the Estonian power and gas transmission system operator, has developed such innovative platforms before – for the electricity market in 2013 and for the gas market in 2017. Then, in 2021, it grouped all its energy data-related systems and processes to establish the brand Estfeed.

As for Navitasoft, we carried out our first data hub development project in Hungary in 2017, and we have been hoping ever since to take part in projects with the goal to develop a data hub. Fast forward to 2022, and we are about to start another joint project with Elering to develop Estonia’s new, nation-wide power and gas data hub.

On the strength of the success of three previous joint projects, Elering has once again decided to rely on our expertise and experience. As Marie Kalmet, Head of Systems Services at Elering has said: “We at Elering have already seen three times that Navitasoft’s software solutions are the perfect fit for our IT architecture requirements. Therefore, we are pleased to partner with them for yet another ambitious project.”

In a recent blog article, we discussed what data hubs do and why they matter, but it’s worth recapping the basics.

The importance of data hubs

The purpose of a data hub in energy markets is to ensure the exchange and storage of metering data between market participants according to their rights, and to facilitate the process of changing suppliers. Each market participant and metering point in the data hub has its own unique energy identification code (EIC). Data hubs can be accessed via API and web interface, available to data providers and users as defined in the legislation – network operators, line operators, open suppliers, balance providers etc. 

In Elering’s case, end customers (consumers and producers) and their representatives can grant access to their data via the operator’s client portal. Clients have access to their metering data - which they can also download - and the information regarding themselves, such as the period of validity for signed agreements, open suppliers, EICs, and the technical data regarding their metering points. They can also manage their representation rights and data access permissions for market participants other than their open suppliers.

Elering’s new data hub - why it is needed and what it will do 

To sustainably serve the business needs of energy markets, it is necessary to renew the existing outdated technology of data hubs. The major challenges Elering’s data hubs are facing include load capacity and aggregation, dependence between components created at the code level and the security of data exchange. In addition, an analysis and reporting module needs to be developed.

To overcome these challenges, Elering is switching to a more flexible, microservice-based architecture concept that enables the development of a new energy data back-end platform that will make versatile data exchange possible for both electricity and gas markets, and later for other energy types, too. The new platform will contain a metering point-related dataset, including metering data, agreement data, metering point technical data, personal data and its obfuscation, and additional data collection. The following will also be developed:

• Identity registry as a microservice
• Data migration from existing systems
• Other services necessary to guarantee the communication between all microservices
• Electricity and gas market business functionalities

The development of the new system will be carried out in parallel with Elering’s two existing data hubs, while the business processes that need to be developed and the development schedule itself will be managed by Elering.

The project includes the following activities:

1. Developing an identity registry as a microservice
2. Migrating the metering points’ data from the existing data hubs, including the dataset and the updates to the data
3. Obfuscation possibility for personal data
4. Metering data migration from the existing data hubs
5. Other necessary functionalities to ensure effective communication between services and platforms
6. Developing electricity and gas market business processes in parallel with existing platforms and/or according to agreed amendments for business processes
7. Developing the accesses solutions to all energy services (via web interface and API) according to their respective rights
8. Developing the 15-minute ISP data exchange functionalities

It was only about a month ago that we announced our latest collaboration with Elering but we are thrilled to soon be working together with our Estonian partner on a new project. Here is what our CEO, Ákos Füzi, has had to say about the partnership regarding Elering’s new data hub: 

“A TSO awarding a vendor four independent projects is almost unheard of, but what makes this new cooperation with Elering even more remarkable and special is that it’s a greenfield development project aimed at the replacement of Estfeed. It’s an incredibly exciting project and we’re delighted to be a part of it.”

Considering implementing a data hub? Our experts are happy to guide you through the benefits and to help you develop a robust, future-proof architecture that will help you make the most of your data.