Energy trading infrastructure

Energy Trading Platform Amsterdam (ETPA) offers an independent platform to trade in electricity more simply and more efficiently.

The energy market has become more complex over the last decade due to new smaller (for now mostly solar and wind) players. The ETPA platform was developed to focus on short-term electricity trading. Participants can use it to sell their surplus or buy power to cover a shortfall. The ETPA platform facilitates both the delivery of electricity and related payments. Major energy market players already use it, as well as smaller ones such as greenhouses and waste processing businesses.

We have used Axon Framework and Axon Server for many years as the basis for our energy trading platform infrastructure.

- Jorrit Nijholt, Chief Technology Officer at ETPA

Challenges

ETPA needed an energy trading platform that was compliant with Dutch and European regulatory requirements, ready for scalability and reliability, and able to expand into Europe to adopt new business models and expand operations. The evolution of ETPA’s energy trading platform is a result of years of building a platform that matches the requirements of compliance, scalability, and reliability for the future.

• Compliance

The platform needed to be transparent and ready for ad-hoc inspections by regulators, such as Autoriteit Consument & Market (ACM) and the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). Regulators need to know what happened when and by whom in order to prevent or investigate market manipulation.

• Scalability

  ETPA wanted to expand its operation from the Netherlands to the rest of Europe. They needed to be ready for unpredictable and highfrequency trading demands from an ever-growing group of ETPA participants such as suppliers, traders, and consumers of energy, including horticulture, waste disposal, aluminum smelters, cars, batteries, solar panels, and windmills.

• Reliability

  Energy trading is a 24x7 and a 365-day operation, and downtime is not an option.