Energy Communication Platform

08.06.2011

Changes to the present environment of European energy environment have put increasing demands on business and technical data exchanges among all energy market participants, such as transmission system operators (TSOs), energy producers and suppliers, consumers and others. The ECP (Energy Communication Platform) is the response which easily and efficiently satisfies this need.

​ Jan Konrád, Managing Director Unicorn Systems E

The ECP is a modern, technologically open, decentralized communication platform developed to provide secure and reliable data exchange, which is becoming more and more essential in the energy sector.

A key feature of the ECP is that it serves as an efficient and quickly deployable integration and communication concentrator. The ECP supports various communication channels (web services, FSSF, SCP, API and others) and thus elegantly separates the technological aspects from business data communication. By interconnecting the ECP clients, the platform creates an independent network for B2B communication.

ECP under the magnifying glass

From the perspective of software architecture, the ECP is a decentralized communication platform, creating the ECP network based on communication nodes (ECP Node) and communication clients (ECP Client). The ECP has been developed in JAVA language, in combination with well-proven Open Source technologies. The result is the multi-platform communication solution, which respects the normal range of technologies utilized in the IT environment of European organizations at the level of hardware, operating system, database and communication interface/channels.

The basic use is simple – the addressee is identified by their unique code (EIC), the ECP network finds the addressee in its shared directory, and delivers each message safely and securely to its destination. The message can contain any type of document: text, XML file, binary data, or multimedia. The highest security level of the entire communication, both in terms of allowing access only to authorized users and delivering messages to recipients within the fixed time limits, are both matters of course.

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Fig. 1 – Basic concept of the ECP network

Thanks to its open design, the ECP is ready to support both large corporations using a Business-to-Business (B2B) connection for automated and frequent direct communication between information systems, and smaller players who can use the graphic user interface of the ECP Client to easily send, receive and filter messages.
 

Practical use of the ECP

The ECP as a united system for the exchange of data in energy sector secures fast and efficient data exchange among entities, both in terms of the immediate and guaranteed transfer of any data messages and also minimizing the costs of integration of communication systems. Thanks to its united standard, data exchange is easy and maximally efficient and cost-effective. High security, reliability of proper delivery of sent messages, auditability and, last but not least, communication tracking are other great advantages of the platform.

The ECP is employed at the places where the strictest criteria regarding reliability and safety of delivery are imposed, according to the importance of the data transmitted:

• Communication between TSOs and other market participants – Data exchange is standardized, fully secured and reliable.
• Coordination between TSOs – The ECP helps, wherever necessary, to collect and consolidate data at the international scale.
• Critical processes – The ECP supports the most important business processes of TSOs built on the mutual communication of more parties.
• Renewable resources – The ECP is a tool for collecting data and communication among wind power plants and farms, their operators and distribution systems.
• Communication with energy producers – Reliable data communication among energy resources and distribution and transmission systems enables the regulation of the power units
• Smart networks – Collection of business data from individual components of the new generation of networks is secure and reliable.

As regards the return on investment of the European TSOs, we are able to talk about the return on the investment that has already taken place in the first wave of the ECP deployment within the CWE Market Coupling for 11 European organizations. If each organization deals with the respective task in a proprietary manner, the total costs will be at minimum equal, without allowing for the costs of adaptation of each business system accountable for communication. Each new project in Europe where the ECP will be deployed will incur savings and increase added value of the ECP for customers.

The ECP is used, for example, with the CTDS system, which performs security analyses of the transmission system operation and is implemented at 9 Central European transmission system operators that provide for power energy supplies for 170 million citizens in Europe. The CTDS system collects the information on operation plans of the European transmission systems, the data obtained is subsequently consolidated, subjected to security calculations and the results are provided to all project members. This output enables each TSO timely adopting necessary and coordinated operation measures to secure safe and reliable operation of the interconnected electricity networks.
 

Further potential of the ECP in the European energy industry

The ECP has a great future. Further potential applications of the ECP, not limited only to energy trading utilities, are currently being developed. Growing liquidity of the Pan-European markets is generating the need for standardized and secured B2B communication also in other areas, such gas distribution and trading. Another factor which supports further expansion of the ECP is that the ENTSO-E organization grants the ECP licenses for energy sector fully free of charge.
 

The ECP history

Since 2002, the ENTSO-E (European Network of Transmission System Operators) organization has been striving to standardize and harmonize communication among Transmission System Operators (TSOs) and market participants. Technical aspects of this communication (communication channels, protocols, digital signatures and encryption) have become the independent solution – they and the Energy Communication Platform (ECP) are part of the developed standard Energy Data Exchange System.

From the perspective of the deployment and use of the ECP, CWE Market Coupling (connection of energy markets in the countries of Western Europe and later also in Scandinavia) was elected a pioneering project. Historically the first ECP network was developed for this project enabling the connection of 7 TSOs in the CWE region (in the energy sector of the Central-Western European region, which includes Germany, France and Benelux countries), the 3 largest European energy exchanges (APX-ENDEX, Belpex, Powernext/EPEX) and CASC (the auction office for the CWE region seated in Luxembourg).