The electricity market has developed rapidly in recent years, creating new opportunities but also bringing complex challenges. Market participants must manage vast amounts of data daily – from real-time prices and consumption forecasts to production volumes. In such conditions, manual data processing is both time-consuming and prone to errors, directly impacting a company’s efficiency and profitability.
Automated solutions help alleviate these challenges by reducing the risk of human error and making data-driven decisions faster and more precise. To capitalize on these opportunities, STACC and eTerminal partnered to optimize energy trading processes, supporting the company’s rapidly growing customer portfolio.
Siim Meeliste, Head of Electricity Trading at eTerminal, emphasized that efficient and accurate data processing solutions provide a significant competitive advantage in the electricity market. “Before starting our collaboration with STACC, we conducted a thorough review of existing solutions. However, we decided to build from scratch with a strong partner who had prior experience in energy sector data processing and could also contribute insights regarding co-financing from support programs.”
A solution for automated electricity trading
eTerminal needed a solution that would allow them to:
- Accurately predict electricity consumption and production within their portfolio,
- Use weather data and historical electricity prices for forecasting,
- Automate the creation and submission of purchase orders to Nord Pool,
- Send daily balance reports to Elering based on forecast results and executed transactions on Nord Pool,
- Gain an overview of and intervene in automated processes when necessary.
In collaboration with STACC, a solution was developed consisting of several key components:
- Data flow integration: To accelerate data processing, information from various sources was standardized, eliminating reliance on manual work.
- Consumption and production forecasts: Machine learning algorithms were used to develop initial consumption and production forecasting models, which can be refined over time.
- Automation of trading and balance planning: Instead of a manual process, the system now generates and submits Nord Pool purchase orders and Elering balance plans autonomously.
The daily process begins with analyzing new input data, resulting in a forecast for the next day’s electricity production and consumption. Based on this, the necessary electricity volumes for purchase from Nord Pool’s day-ahead market are calculated. Once the auction results are available, a balance plan is generated and submitted to Elering.
The primary goal of the system is to free up traders’ time – rather than handling each step manually, traders now take on a supervisory role and intervene in critical situations. Manual intervention may be necessary in case of technical failures or unexpected changes in market conditions that the model has not yet learned to handle. The automated system significantly reduces the need for manual work, improving both the accuracy and efficiency of processes.
The solution was developed in cooperation with Positium, whose representative, Marko Peterson, stated: “The uniqueness of this project lay in the fact that previous software solutions could not be directly reused. The biggest challenge was to create a minimum viable product (MVP) where balancing quality and development speed required continuous attention. We had many discussions on how to strike the right balance between rapid development and delivering a high-quality final product. Additionally, testing new approaches and experimenting with different methods played a crucial role in this project, making it a challenge for all participants while laying a strong foundation for future developments.”
Future prospects and the transition to 15-minute data intervals
Following the successful deployment of the initial solution, collaboration with eTerminal continues to support the transition to the 15-minute data exchange standard and a 15-minute interval day-ahead market. The new 15-minute standard will be implemented in data exchange as of March 1, 2025.
Under the current standard, the electricity market operates with 24 data intervals per day:
1. 00:00–00:59
2. 01:00–01:59
…
24. 23:00–23:59
With the new system, there will be 96 data intervals per day:
1. 00:00–00:14
2. 00:15–00:29
…
96. 23:45–23:59
This transition will make data storage and transmission four times more granular. While this increases data volumes, it also presents a significant opportunity to improve electricity grid balancing. Elering will implement the new standard in early 2025, with Nord Pool planning to follow in the near future.
For electricity traders, this change will allow the use of more detailed measurement data to enhance forecasting accuracy, thereby reducing both trading costs and end-user electricity prices. However, the transition also comes with additional workloads and challenges. All automated systems communicating with Elering or Nord Pool must be adapted, and electricity consumption and production forecasting models must be updated – steps in which STACC is supporting eTerminal.
Optimizing electricity trading with data science
STACC’s data scientist Kaspar Valk emphasizes the complexity and importance of the project: “It’s highly motivating to develop a solution where the benefits for the client are clearly measurable and provide substantial daily time savings. Collaboration with eTerminal has been excellent, thanks to Siim Meeliste’s professional approach, strong technical understanding, and goal-oriented mindset. From a data science perspective, forecasting day-ahead production and consumption volumes for eTerminal’s portfolio is both fascinating and challenging. One complexity is the dynamic nature of electricity traders’ customer portfolios – each day, it can grow or shrink, requiring models to adapt continuously. Another challenge lies in the diverse consumption patterns of different electricity users, ranging from households to industrial facilities. The key question is whether to use a single model for the entire portfolio or develop specialized models for different customer segments.”
“The time savings from automating these systems can be measured in entire work shifts.”
— Siim Meeliste, Head of Electricity Trading, eTerminal
If your company is facing complex energy management challenges or growing data volumes, it’s time to consider automation. Contact us to explore how STACC can help optimize workflows, reduce errors, and increase efficiency.
Author: Kaspar Valk, STACC’s data scientist
Cover photo: eTerminal
As part of this collaboration, machine learning models developed under subproject 1.14, “Data Analytics for Electric Energy Management,” within project EU48684, were validated.
