How does EDA work?
EDA is a secure, future-oriented, stable and cost-effective data exchange method that plays a pioneering role in the European energy market.
Specifically, EDA supports three aspects of the information chain:
- despatch,
- distribution and
- reception of a message
in encrypted form in each case, and independent of the data format of the market message itself.
A uniform infrastructure is available to all companies from the Austrian energy sector, through which data or electronic documents can be exchanged in a uniform format and using a uniform communication protocol. This helps to avoid costs arising from individual agreements in the B2B integration of individual communication partners.
The concept behind EDA
The secure, standardised and simple energy data exchange is based on the following principles:
- Standardised communication protocols
- Standardised data formats
- Standardised business processes
The use of standardised protocols within the EDA infrastructure ensures that market participants do not incur additional expense for maintaining different interfaces. Data is exchanged in a standardised format, which means that data processing remains uniform for all participants. The processes for processing and responding to messages are also standardised. The processing of the data is also standardised to a certain extent, such that the effort required to process messages is minimised.
How is data exchanged?
The data is encrypted end-to-end, such that only the actual addressee of the message can read its content. With the help of a public-key infrastructure (PKI), each participant has a private key that is stored locally and known only to the participant. This enables electronic signatures to be created and encrypted messages to be made readable.
Physically, data is forwarded to the recipient via a distributor, the Single Internet Access (SIA). The SIA is maintained and physically operated within Austria. The contents of the messages are not visible to the infrastructure operator.
Decentralisation
Data sovereignty is vested in the participants in the EDA infrastructure – data is transported via the EDA infrastructure but not stored there and cannot be read out. The data is thus only stored at the individual authorised participants. This fact minimises data, and there is no single point of failure.
Decentralisation also ensures data avoidance and data economy, privacy by design and security by design, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Further development of data exchange by the associations*
At the outset of every expansion of standards and formats for the EDA infrastructure, a determination of demands is always performed. That determination of demands may be prompted by changes to the legal environment or an operational requirement.
The determination of demands is analysed by the working groups of the associations, who develop new or revised concepts and publish these on ebUtilities.at. Market participants can submit comments within a fixed period of time in the context of a consultation.
After the consultation phase, the comments of the market participants are analysed and, where appropriate, incorporated into the concept. The final version is then published on ebUtilities.at.
With the publication on ebUtilities.at, a date for the go-live of the further development is also communicated. On that date, the changes will go live and transfer to running operations.
During the period between publication and going live and operating, the individual market participants and EDA GmbH will implement the changes in the affected systems.
* Trade Association of Gas and Heat Supply Companies ([German acronym:] FGW),
Oesterreichs Energie (OE), Association of Austrian Electricity Utilities ([German acronym: VÖEW)
Development of new technical documents according to SoMa5
