PONTON has been awarded as the principal provider of the Austrian energy data communication infrastructure

In the energy sector, there are several highly standardised processes such as suppler switching, meter data exchange, consent management for private data, etc. The Austrian approach for this is EDA, short for Energy Data exchange Austria. With our experience in standardised data exchange, PONTON has been chosen in the year 2012 as the supplier of the EDA data communication infrastructure, based on PONTON X/P. EDA has RFQed this service in 2021 and PONTON has again been awarded as the supplier of the software technology and support, maintenance, and development services around EDA.

Compared with other approaches to unified data exchange in the energy sector, EDA is unique in Europe: As a decentral peer-to-peer communication infrastructure it is leading European-wide regarding its cost efficiency, security, throughput, low entry barriers, and its high level of standardisation. While the data exchange protocol is often tied to each individual functional process in other countries, EDA follows a “bottom-up” approach: In Austria, EDA serves as a horizontal, process-independent carrier that has been established in connection with the supplier switching process in 2012. However, over time, this infrastructure has been re-used again and again, whenever additional processes need to be implemented in the energy sector.

This efficient re-use of a standardised infrastructure makes a difference: No central datahub is required, i.e., no additional cost. As a consequence, the overall price tag of EDA is a fraction of the budget paid to central datahubs in other countries.

PONTON X/P currently uses ebMS2.0 as a secure protocol for data exchange which will be migrated to AS4 in 2022. As PONTON has integrated AS4 as a protocol option already in the year 2014, the transition between the two protocols requires only a re-configuration of the EDA communication endpoints – which is done in less than a day across the whole sector.

As an expert in standardised, secure, and reliable data interchange, PONTON proactively advances their technology to address the next generation’s requirements.