Data Fabricator builds customized energy data solutions based on Kofax Kapow™ to provide the necessary transparency on the shifting energy market. With the burden of regulatory and legal requirements and a constant battle for market share and consumer confidence, providing transparency and information has become an imperative for energy providers, public utilities and industrial companies today. Data Fabricator GmbH helps provide this transparency with individually tailored energy data dashboards built with the help of Kofax.
The Challenge
In today’s deregulated energy market there is an enormous need for information and transparency—no matter if it is public utilities, energy providers or industrial companies. Providing transparency can either be a requirement, a differentiating factor or highly relevant for the contract conditions. For all the players along the value chain of energy supply it is necessary to easily consume fundamental energy data, i.e. actual and forecast data on energy production and consumption and this potentially combined individually with market commentary, stock exchange and broker data.
For an industrial customer of a public utility company, for example, it is the combined view built out of charging-related macro data, the appropriate broker and price development data, as well as respective market comments that is relevant in regards to the contract—also taking any tranche models into account. A long-established publisher for the energy market on the other hand wants to provide temperature and wind forecasts combined with current photovoltaic feeds as part of the industry news section. And all this has to be provided as smooth as possible.
All these examples make clear that the “energy-saving” integration of data from various internal and external data sources needed to provide market-relevant, individual energy data solutions thus becomes a challenge.
The Solution
For Data Fabricator, Kapow appears without alternative to be the foundation needed to aggregate the individually relevant energy data from internal and external sources, transform and merge it into a single data model—and all that in a flexible, efficient and smooth way. Thus, Data Fabricator uses Kapow to convert any relevant energy data that can be accessed using a Web browser in a uniform format and use it as a basis for customized portals, visualization and dashboards for the energy sector.
Currently, energy-related data from over 75 data sources with 150 defined integration flows are being automatically aggregated in a 5-minute update frequency, transformed and integrated on the basis of Kapow.
The Results
Even for complex energy portal requests it is possible for Data Fabricator GmbH to complete the implementation in only a few weeks—thanks to Kapow. Requests on additional data feeds from partially new sources can be added to existing solutions within only hours while existing data integration flows can be modified or adapted in only a few minutes.
Thanks to the workflow-driven, browser-based application of Kapow there is almost no programming effort required. The transfer of specifications into appropriate data integration flows by referring to the relevant data and data sources is almost done in one single step—and as such, it is extremely cost-effective.
Future
In the era of Big Data and in a market where producers and consumers become “prosumers” thanks to alternative energy potentials, the need for information needed to coordinate energy consumption and production will even increase. And Data Fabricator will bring its contribution to the industry: With individual portals for industrial companies that provide the appropriate view of the load profile in 15-minute intervals, targeted connections to Energy Data Management (EDM) systems and mobile dashboard solutions tailored to the individual information requirements of the customer.
