OKTE’s position as an organizer of the electricity market and the tasks which we perform in connection with this are unique, affecting all market participants. That’s why we choose long-term reliable partners to achieve the highest quality information systems solutions.
About company
OKTE, a.s., acting as the organizer of the short-term electricity market in the Slovak Republic and the tasks this involves arise from international and national legislation.
OKTE, a.s., organizes and evaluates the short-term cross-border electricity market, reports transaction data to European structures, performs settlement of imbalances, collects and manages data metered, accesses data from smart metering systems and performs central billing of electricity network charges.
These services to electricity market participants are provided on the basis of open, transparent and non-discriminatory conditions.
The activities of the Company are subject to price regulation by the Office for Regulation of Utilities.
Background
OKTE, a.s., started its activities on 1 January 2011 by taking over the imbalance settling activities and the organized Czech-Slovak cross-border electricity market, which was provided by the transmission system operator. The cross-border market was further expanding gradually over the Hungarian (2012) and Romanian (2014) trading zones, and more conceptual changes were also made in the area of settlement of imbalances. OKTE, a.s., later started to perform new activities in collection and administration of data metered (2013) and central invoicing (2014). In connection with the implementation of smart metering systems, a legislative requirement to make metered data available to end-users (2015) arose. European legislation brought new reporting obligations for business transaction data to the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (2015/2016).
Objectives
The main objective was to design and develop processes for the regulated activities of OKTE, a.s., and their subsequent transposition into legislative proposals. At the same time, to build secure and reliable system support with continuous supervision of processes:
• Settlement of imbalances
• The organized short-term market in electricity and its European integration
• Collection and administration of metered data
• Central billing of charges related to the operation of the electricity grid
• Making data from smart metering systems available
• Reporting commercial transactions to the Agency for Cooperation of Energy Regulators
Solution
The system coverage of the main processes of the organizer of the short-term electricity market is provided by the implementation of XMtrade®/PXS – of the integrated OKTE, a.s., system which consists of the following parts:
• XMtrade®/ISZO – information system for settling imbalances
• XMtrade®/ISOT – information system of the market organizer
• XMtrade®/ISOM – information system of the metering operator
• XMtrade®/ISCF – information system for central billing
• XMtrade®/IMS – information system for intelligent measuring systems
• XMtrade®/RRM – registered reporting mechanism
XMtrade®/ISO covers business-critical processes and processes sensitive data, therefore its high level of accessibility and security are crucial.
Technologies
XMtrade®/PXS is a web application available through a wide variety of different types and versions of internet browsers. There is also a mobile application running on tablets or smart phones. Information systems of external entities can be integrated through published web services. The whole solution is based on geographic metro-clusters, providing robust infrastructure with redundant components to ensure high availability even in the event of a failure of parts. Above this infrastructure, with the optimal use of hardware resources between individual geographically separate locations, is a web-based farm with load balancing. Data is protected from loss by the implemented mechanisms for it to be replicated, backed up and archived.
Services
The operation of business critical processes proceeds under continuous supervision and with the technical support of sféra, a.s., in accordance with the recommendations of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) methodology. Monitoring covers the system infrastructure, applications, and business processes, whose current state is visualized through interactive process maps. Reserve workflows are also prepared to ensure continuous running of processes, including in marginal situations.
In addition to operating support, the expert team also provides analysis and design of solutions for further development of systems, which is implemented on the basis of legislative changes or requirements of electricity market participants.