Joint Bid by Tieto Estonia AS and Tieto Latvia SIA is Declared Winner of the Tender for the Data Warehouse

The joint bid by Tieto Estonia AS and Tieto Latvia SIA has been identified as the most economical in the public procurement for the construction of the information system for the data warehouse (Andmeladu) that will be needed for the opening of the electricity market. The data warehouse will allow data to be collected and exchanged between consumers, network operators and sellers so that the electricity market can function more efficiently and consumers can change seller more easily.

The joint bidders Tieto Estonia AS and Tieto Latvia SIA made an offer of 4.9 million euros, which covers all the necessary licences and three years of maintenance. The investment in the data exchange platform will come from Elering’s confirmed investment budget and the annual maintenance costs will be met by the network operators.

For the open electricity market to function properly, it is very important that there is equal treatment of electricity sellers and efficient exchange of data between market participants. The data warehouse is an information system being developed for the opening electricity market under Elering’s leadership in order to make sure that the data from all market participants – sellers, consumers, producers and network operators – are available on an equal basis once the market opens fully, and that choosing and changing supplier is simple and smooth.

Network operators will send the amounts of electricity measured hourly at measuring points to the information system of the data warehouse and this information will then be available to all market participants who have the right to access such data. The system will help the process for changing electricity seller and will assess the legal rights when supply contracts are signed. Information about changes of supplier can also be exchanged in the data warehouse with network operators and other market participants who have the right to access such information, and the warehouse will be the place where market participants can manage their permissions and rights of access to data and make personalised offers. All consumers will be able to control how much of their data the sellers can access.

The main obligation to share data in the market falls on those who are responsible for measuring amounts of electricity, principally network operators and direct line owners, while the obligations concerning balance management fall on sellers, balance managers and system operators.

Elering’s tender called for a full software and hardware solution to implement and support these processes. The public procurement was carried out in a negotiated tendering procedure, in which applicants had to qualify to become bidders. Four applicants qualified, of which three put in bids, and the winner was the joint bid by Tieto Estonia AS and Tieto Latvia SIA. The procurement contract will be signed after the end of the legally required period for appeals.

Current market participants will be closely involved in the development work on the data exchange platform and other state institutions that are affected by it will also be consulted. The project management group contains representatives from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, the Competition Authority, the Data Protection Inspectorate, Elering, Eesti Energia, VKG Elektrivõrkude, Imatra Elektri, Nordic Power Management, Baltic Energy Services and Latvenergo Kaubandus. Members of the management group have signed an agreement to work together on developing the data exchange platform, and other distribution network operators and electricity market participants are expected to join the agreement.

The Estonian electricity market will open fully from 1 January 2013, meaning that each consumer can choose their supplier by choosing the best package and conditions from among the many available choices and agreeing on prices and amounts with the supplier. Those consumers who don’t want to or don’t manage to choose a supplier by that date will not be left without electricity, but will be sold electricity as a legally defined universal service, which will be provided by the network operator selling network services to them, or by the seller it nominates if it does not sell electricity itself. The price of electricity sold as a universal service is regulated under the Electricity Market Act and is based on the weighted average price of electricity on the power exchange in the previous calendar month.