BritNed Launches Empire

BritNed revolutionises energy trading with launch of Empire, the next-generation trading and nomination platform

BritNed, the pioneering High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) interconnector linking the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, has launched of Empire, the world’s first fully-integrated interconnector platform.

Designed in partnership between BritNed and Supercharge, Empire launched on 19th September 2023, and enables BritNed’s customers to participate in energy auctions and nominate their awarded capacity to transport electricity between Great Britain and the Netherlands. Empire is poised to deliver unparalleled levels of performance and productivity within the interconnector sector, and will enable easier and new trading possibilities for BritNed’s participants.

Over the first 10 days of its operation Empire has allocated 892GW of Day Ahead and Intraday capacity with a total Allocation Revenue of €4.4M and 369MW of Long Term capacity for over €1.8M. The total Flow that was instructed by Empire was 184GWh which is equivalent to powering approximately 2.5 million households every single hour.

BritNed operates the 1000MW interconnector between Great Britain and the Netherlands, connecting the electrical grids of the countries via a 260km submarine cable, and powers over 1.4 million homes per year. The high-voltage cable allows over 70 participating organisations to trade power between the two markets. To fully utilise the capacity of the interconnector and ensure safe operations, sophisticated orchestration is necessary for capacity allocation, transfer fulfilment, and financial settlements.

Before Empire, BritNed had previously been using multiple platforms to run Long Term, Day Ahead and Intraday auctions, manage nominations, and control energy flow.

An internal analysis led to the conclusion that the previous setup of multiple systems restricted BritNed’s innovation to roll out new and flexible allocation products and should be replaced by one integrated platform. An integrated platform promises to unlock significant productivity gains, minimise curtailment losses, minimise process breakdown risks and remove technical bottlenecks that hinder the development of innovative offers.

To deliver Empire, BritNed embarked on a partnership with Supercharge, specialists in creating software that combines cutting-edge technology with a human-centred design. BritNed and Supercharge have spent the 18 months working together to design and implement a solution that is geared towards efficiency and reliability down to its every detail.

Empire features state-of-the-art API interfaces and a user experience focused on productivity. It offers an exceptionally efficient and seamless work environment for over 70 companies utilising the interconnector to participate in capacity auctions and manage nominations.

Additionally, the platform enables BritNed to maximise financial performance by optimising internal operations and enabling commercial innovation in a landscape that is rapidly changing in the wake of the sustainable energy revolution.

Empire offers a single-window solution for BritNed’s customers, including energy generators and traders, allowing them to manage both long and short-term auctions and nominations from one solution. The platform is seamlessly integrated with BritNed’s Control Point System and 15+ Third Parties in the European Energy Industry, enabling highly automated operations. Each component of the platform has been meticulously designed to meet the specific needs of energy sector participants, resulting in streamlined workflows and reliable performance.

Empire has been designed by UX experts after carefully understanding the needs and ideal workflows of the various users. By replacing fractured and cumbersome multi-platform workflows with efficient integrated journeys, the platform significantly reduces the workload of traders and operators. This frees up capacity and allows human experts to focus on critical decisions and have access to relevant data when needed on a single easy-to use platform.

By consolidating all information into one integrated platform, it becomes possible to create dashboards that provide a comprehensive overview of relevant auctions, allocations, and nominations to all participants, encompassing all timescales within a Delivery Day. This enables faster and more accurate decision-making, observing and setting the position for each participant in a more comprehensive way, and ultimately leading to improved business outcomes.

The new platform offers advanced APIs that enable seamless integration for companies participating in auctions through its own internal systems. These modern interfaces reduce IT operational costs for customers and establish reliable, real-time data connections, enabling the customers to extract more data than previously.

As a result of optimised and automated workflows in case of unplanned outage/asset failure of BritNed’s undersea cable, BritNed’s operators are now able to react and fully take control of all operational aspects of such unforeseen consequences in a matter of minutes. This quick action can result in BritNed’s position being closer to its operational flow, which in turn causes a smaller imbalance and issues in the wider European Energy Market. It also helps to significantly decrease potential financial losses through curtailment compensation and Backup Power Purchase agreements for all involved parties.