- Country: Estonia
- Project timeline: 2015 - 2023
- Customer: Elering AS - Estonian national transmission system operator (TSO) for electricity and natural gas
Project Background
The path leading to the Estfeed project was long and gradual, guided by a series of political and legal milestones that completely redefined the energy market landscape. In January 2010, Estonian government founded Elering as a spin-off of the main national utility company Eesti Energia and thus created an independent transmission system operator (TSO) for Estonia. This was spurred by the liberalisation of national energy markets on the European Union level and the approval of the Third Energy Package in 2009. Further changes in the legislative framework such as the amended Electricity Market Act in 2014 and the amended Natural Gas Act in 2017 aimed to drive market competition and established a basis for developing a data exchange platform to open up access to energy data for all market players. The adoption of the GDPR regulation (2016) and the Clean Energy Package (2019) further refined the legal playing ground around energy data exchange.
These developments paved way for the launch of the Estfeed project. Estfeed was envisioned and brought to life as a platform for energy data access and exchange, developed to interconnect the data of different sources (e.g., electricity and gas data hubs) and applications in a secure and controllable way. The solution includes an interconnected customer portal that provides an overview of energy-related data and that features a consent management system, helping to enforce data ownership and control as well as GDPR-compliant data processing authorisation by individuals. Thanks to the adoption of Estfeed, novel smart services and solutions that meet data protection and privacy requirements can be built and offered for the energy market.
Cybernetica’s Contribution
Cybernetica as the technology partner for Elering carried out business and system analysis, designed system architecture and developed, tested and implemented the Estfeed data exchange platform based on decentralised architecture and the X-Road technology. Cybernetica also built a privacy feature called consent management system on top of the data exchange platform and developed the key components of the customer portal user interface.
What’s been the impact?
- Implementation of the Estfeed solution has opened the door to the development and launch of innovative data-driven services and solutions benefiting various energy market stakeholders. Some of the more common use cases involve granting third party service providers access to personal smart meter data - for example, to switch energy providers by receiving personalised proposals based on one's historical energy usage, or to authorise a family member or caregiver to manage energy consumption on one's behalf. Before long, AI agents with access to personal energy data are expected to offer recommendations that encourage more sustainable behaviour.
- From a legal standpoint, Estfeed is designed to serve as a secure and lawful platform for data exchange between data providers and data users, based on the consent of data owners. In this sense, it is both Clean Energy Package and GDPR compliant.
- From a technical standpoint, Estfeed enables cost-efficient and easily maintained integrations between market participants, allowing technical teams to focus on more high-value tasks.
- In the foreseeable future, Estfeed is set to further activate the energy market and contribute to different climate-related goals, e.g., optimal energy consumption, sustainable systems and cost savings, better living environment for people.
Want to know more?
To learn more about this project and explore how we can support you in addressing similar challenges, see the following links or get in touch!
- Estfeed portal
- Cybernetica news release from 2019: Cybernetica to Continue Developing Elering’s Data Exchange Platform Estfeed
- Estfeed case study by NIIS: Access to electricity and gas smart meter data in Estonia powered by X-Road