In Tallinn, Estonia, grid operators from Spain, France, Denmark, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Estonia signed a Letter of Intent to investigate launching an Alliance that will connect together the energy data of all Europeans, so that energy companies can securely access this data and operate in any European country without barriers.
Europe has set ambitious energy and climate goals. A key milestone to achieve these targets is retail market integration. Retail and services markets are highly fragmented, due to differences in regulation and data access, which prevents the spread of energy retail, efficiency and flexibility solutions around Europe. The Clean Energy Package aims to fix this, requiring interoperability of data access methods.
If successful, the initiative, led by Estonian electricity and gas system operator Elering, will achieve retail market integration in practice. A benefit assessment by Pöyry indicates that the value of integrating European data would be at least €200M each year.
“Elering’s goal is to support achieving the EU climate targets and to empower consumers; to give them more choices, better services and lower prices for energy, flexibility and efficiency,” said Taavi Veskimägi, CEO of Elering.
“Secure access to data allows companies to develop digital tools applicable to the whole European market, which increases competition that brings better prices and opportunities for the end customer. This is the energy transition’s next phase; putting people and solutions for homes and businesses in the centre,” he stressed.
Energy Data Access Alliance aim is to agree on standards of how to obtain meter data and send market messages in a secure way. There will be no super-hub, data moves directly between parties. The key is consent management, home and business owners retain full control over their data.
The Energy Data Access conference where Letter of Intent was signed is organized by Elering in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia and RTE, the French power system operator. The conference is a follow-up to the Tallinn e-Energy Declaration.
Letter of Intent was signed by Elering (Estonia), Red Eléctrica de España (Spain), Réseau de Transport d’Électricité (France), PSE (Poland), Fingrid (Finland), Energinet (Denmark), TenneT (the Netherlands) and ESO (Lithuania).
