Energy Price Index

At the end of 2009, to correct for a persistent lack of current, frequently updated and methodologically reliable information on household prices for both electricity and gas at the European level, the Austrian regulator E-Control and VaasaETT developed a methodology that would help monitor residential energy prices.  The results, updated monthly, are made available on our respective websites and sent to over 100 subscribers from regulatory or government bodies, utilities, research centres, consultancies and others across the globe.

Based on the electricity and natural gas prices collected both for incumbents and competitor companies and taking into account different local consumption patterns, E-Control and VaasaETT compile and publish the Household Energy Price Index (HEPI) as well as a monthly ranking of prices within the EU-15 capital cities.
The methodology is designed in such a way that “HEPI prices” reflect prices paid by local typical residential customers and assess overall price developments in Europe. more…

Utility Customer Switching

The Utility Customer Switching Research Project (UCSRP), founded jointly in 2004 by Dr Philip E. Lewis and Paul Grey, monitors switch rates and trends in all fully liberalised energy retail markets worldwide.

It was the first and remains to this day the only global view of utility customer switching activity, as well as being the most comprehensive and uniform source of comparable switching statistics in
the electricity and gas markets worldwide.  It also provides ever-increasing analysis of observed trends and explanations for utility customer switching behavior. Some of this information is provided free or through subscription services to our network members, additional insight is provided through client client offerings.

Available complimentary to qualified candidates, the annual World Energy Retail Market Rankings report is a free summary of global switching activity, highlighting key trends, rankings and explanations. This report focuses on electricity markets with all statistics relating to a weighted aggregation of residential, industrial, commercial and other customer groups. In future this report will be published twice per year. more…

Executive Director of the Smart Energy Demand Coalition (SEDC)

VaasaETT is the executive director of the Smart Energy Demand Coalition, a non-profit membership controlled organization of approximately of the world’s leading DR related utilities (such as EDF, ENEL and EON), technology providers (such as GE Enegy, Schneider Electric, Siemens, Honeywell and Landys and Gyr), non-profit organizations (such as the US Peak Load Management Association, European Smart Meter Interest Group and the European Smart Network Associaton), research centres, aggregators (such as Enernoc) and even telecoms companies (such as Vodafone). more…

European Union – Advanced

A major European Union funded project for the EU Director General of Energy to provide best practice for smart grid technology, regulation an consumer engagement in smart grid. Includes various pilots, developmental work and intensive customer research. VaasaETT is the project technical manager and the main research partner, and has designed the research methodology. Partners include ENEL (project lead), VaasaETT, Iberdrola, ENEL, EDF, and others, with an overall budget of € 4.5 million.

More specifically, the project is developing actionable frameworks enabling residential, commercial/industrial consumers to participate in Smart Meter enabled Active Demand (AD) programs such as demand response, home automation and feedback.  The aim of the project is to facilitate the mass deployment of such programs in Europe.  Also the benefits for key stakeholders and system security is being analyzed.  This is being achieved by comparing the results of 4 Active Demand pilots, involving some 9,500 residential and commercial consumers, matched with data of over 100 AD pilot, the experience of a DR aggregator and data on further AD initiatives.  The data is being extended within the professional surveys incl. a quantitative one in 8 EU member states and over 1,500 interviews.  On this basis, and developing a conception model of active consumer participation and appropriate KPIs, key success factors of AD and recommendations for its future design will be derived.  VaasaETT is  the main research partner in this project and has designed the research methodology.

Aurora (Distribution co. for whole of Tasmania) / Tasmanian Government

Together with Marchment-Hill Consulting, this project will deliver a roadmap for smart grid development in Tasmania for the next 10 years. This is a major all-stakeholder project commissioned by Aurora and taking place under the direct supervision of the Tasmanian Government and Aurora among others.

Ventyx (an ABB company)

VaasaETT is currently conducting an analysis and ranking of smart grid programmes around the world, tracking approximately 200 programmes, 150 in more detail and approximately 30 in-depth analyses covering North America, South America, Asia, Australia & NZ, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The outcome will identify key characteristics of successful smart grid, and will provide what is believed to be the world’s most comparative global analysis of smart grid projects to-date.

ADEME / World Energy Council

A project commissioned by ADEME and the World Energy Council to identify and smart billing best-practice around the world.

European Union – CASSANDRA

VaasaETT is currently taking part in a major three year EU funded project entitled CASSANDRA which commenced in November 2011. VaasaETT are equal partners with eight other companies and universities. The budget of the project is approximately €4.1 million.

Project CASSANDRA aims to build a platform for the realistic DR  and Energy Efficiency modeling of energy market stakeholders and consumer behaviour, providing users with the ability to test and benchmark working scenarios that can affect system operation and company/environmental policies at different levels of abstraction, starting from a basic level (single consumer) and shifting up to large consumer areas (i.e. a city).

The main objectives of Cassandra include:

1. Standardizing and promoting a consumer behavior and load modeling approach and disseminating the energy and environmental benefit/impact to all actors.
2. Develop a modular, extendable and interoperable software platform that will implement the Cassandra paradigm to model, simulate and benchmark scenarios and operations, and act as a decision making tool for energy performance, considering consumer behavior.
3. Design and conduct three pilot cases in order to test and evaluate both the model and the software platform.

More information is available at the Cassandra project web site