Plan for Europe’s common energy data space set out

A common European energy data space is envisaged to become an indispensable part of the future energy system, a new report from the Energy Transition Expertise Centre (EnTEC) highlights.

The common European energy data space was announced in the EU’s digitalisation action plan as key for the management and control of flexibility.

The study by EnTEC, a consortium led by the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research, was undertaken under the auspices of the EU to develop a plan for the realisation of this data space, which also is intended to establish a data infrastructure for further services.

A data space is in essence an infrastructure for data sharing among a set of systems of participants within an agreed upon structural and legal framework.

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It should encourage both interoperability as well as governance structures that help ensure that the relevant parties have better access to data for developing innovative energy services, while people’s sensitive data is adequately protected.

The study was based on an analysis of flexibility provision in three high-level use cases, i.e. virtual power plants and aggregation, price-responsive charging and balancing services from electric vehicles and smart residential flexibilities.

It finds that the common data space can be developed starting from available software components and proposes a five-step action plan:

1. Define initial user stories and understand the business cases of key participants;
2. Define and establish the data space framework and governance;
3. Make data assets discoverable;
4. Develop and provide processes to solve pain points in selected use cases;
5. Extend data space features in an iterative process.

Stakeholders in the initial ecosystem, with the mission to provide flexibility to the system, are transmission and distribution system operators, meter data administrators, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and resource aggregators.

The active consumer as an operator of assets is also a data space participant, although mainly in the role of a data owner who is controlling the use of data by consent to third parties.

Smart metering data

Access to smart metering data assets available from the diverse set of European AMI concepts would be a valuable unique feature of the common European energy data space, the report states.

It will provide a one-stop-shop to access metering data in a common format regardless of central or decentral metering structures in the different European energy markets.

Secondly, the data space will serve as a tool for OEMs to provide energy-related device data from their cloud back-ends, to enable digital services and respond to extended data usage rights of their customers as provisioned by the proposed Data Act and Renewable Energy Directive III.

Reference implementations of key processes complement the development of the data infrastructure in the data space.

In addition to the access to metering data, a standard process for asset registration for flexible energy assets to VPPs will facilitate access to the market for smaller private asset operators.

Energy data space federated architecture

The report notes that building a common European energy data space is an ambitious endeavour, and its success relies on the collaboration and cooperation of many organisations. The regulated nature of the energy sector adds the regulatory environment on national levels as additional complexity.

Given this and the dynamic nature of IT development, the understanding of the common energy data space is based on a federated architecture where several instances of energy data spaces will be operated.

These data spaces should be linked by interoperability mechanisms that allow for data exchange including cross-sectoral purposes, e.g. with mobility, water and smart cities domains.

Governance principles and regulated structures will be key in the early stages of the data space creation, fostering the participants’ trust in the ecosystem. Thus, transparent structures and clear communications have significant importance.

On the technical side, future interoperability requirements will affect the choice of technologies. Further progress and specific advancements on these requirements will help to avoid delays in the architectural and investment decisions as well as the avoidance of vendor lock-in situations.