Finnish Public Broadcasting Company Question no. 1: If the power of a device that can now be included in the virtual power plant is lower than before, what was the lower limit before, and why? And what does that lower limit of 10kWh mean exactly? Should it be purely 10kW, i.e., the peak power of the device, or are there also some requirements for how much it actually consumes every hour? In other words, does it have to be a heater that is constantly in use, so that it can be commanded on and off, or is a heater that is off most of the time, but can be turned on when needed, sufficient?

Backgrounds and sources:

https://www.fingrid.fi/globalassets/dokumentit/fi/sahkomarkkinat/tasesahko/imbalance-price-in-finland-29.8.2024.pdf

https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/balance-service/

https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/balance-service/

Question no. 2: I understand that many attempts have been made over the years to work on these various virtual power plants and exchange-traded electricity ‘sniffers’, but it has remained unclear to me whether the savings from consumption timing and the income from the reserve market are significantly greater than the get the service up and maintenance of the system?

Tekniikka & Talous Question no. 1: What is the core principle of the market mechanism developed at VTT, and how does it differ from earlier energy market models? How did Truman Data end up adopting the VTT-developed mechanism?

Question no. 2: In the Riihimäki pilot, average savings of 15% were achieved by optimizing electricity use. What practical control strategies and technical solutions were used?

Question no. 3: How is the savings potential divided between consumption optimization and market trading, and how does this ratio change when scaling?

Question no. 4: What technical and financial investments are required from property owners to join?

Question no. 5: What is the typical payback period after joining?

Question no. 6: What savings potential can be achieved if 100, 500, or 1,000 properties are connected?

Truman Data develops and sells Energy Coop, the world’s leading state-of-the-art virtual power plant system.

Truman delivers this system as a customized solution to customers, primarily energy companies that need to balance the demand flexibility of their thermal, solar, wind, distribution, or electricity production, or all ofthese simultaneously. Additionally, the Energy Coop virtual power system is deployed to cities, municipalities, and similar entities that manage significant amounts of flexible energy scattered throughout the built environment. Often, this flexibility cannot be controlled or reintegrated into the energy market due to various constraints. However, the Energy Coop system overcomes these challenges, unlocking a new market dimension by utilizing previously inaccessible energy flexibility.

The most important individual customer group consists of real estate funds and construction companies that own large property portfolios. For these customers, the Energy Coop system provides exceptional added value. As a portfolio-dedicated cloud computing model, it serves as a flexible energy monitoring and optimization system, reducing energy costs by minimum 15% within the first week. Over time, it even generates revenue through demand response trading, enabling a return on investment within just two months.

Additionally, the system offers extensive data export functionalities, including ESG data and reporting for building owners and other stakeholders. Connecting buildings to demand response markets also enhances their environmental credentials, earning additional points for sustainability certifications such as LEED. Furthermore, an improved ESG ratinghas been proven to increase building valuation and reduce refinancing costs.

A large real estate portfolio, consisting of thousands of units, can be integrated into the Energy Coop cloud in three to four stages over several months, while smaller portfolios can be connected in just a few weeks.

In addition to its virtual power plant (VPP) solutions, Truman Data offers high-speed, AI-driven high-frequency trading (HFT) bots tailored for demand response markets. These bots leverage an open architecture, allowing seamless third-party development and integration.

The Energy Coop platform and its HFT bots function as an open ecosystem, providing versatile APIs that enable developers to create new applications, such as energy efficiency tools that reduce costs and improve grid flexibility. A key example is the rise of smart modules connecting water heaters to demand response pools in the U.S. These modules could integrate with an open energy exchange, capitalizing on real-time price fluctuations driven by supply and demand dynamics.

Unlike traditional exchanges, Energy Coop’s marketplace model offers a flexible, automated alternative to long-term, unilateral contracts. Customers who opt for the marketplace dimension of Energy Coop, such as the integrated Nord Pool market function, benefit from a system that:

• Automatically creates, verifies, and settles transactions
• Eliminates long-term contract commitments
• Enhances liquidity and accessibility for participants

Regardless of whether a customer chooses a fully customized ICT trading solution or the Energy Coop marketplace, all transactions are powered by dedicated, AI-enhanced trading bots. These bots operate at high speeds, continuously learning from past trades to refine strategies and maximize performance.

The Energy Coop market function can act as an adjacent marketplace for Nord Pool by integrating with its trading mechanisms and extending its functionalities. Here’s how this works:

1. Aggregating Decentralized Energy Flexibility

• The Energy Coop platform pools together small-scale energy assets (e.g., real estate portfolios, industrial sites, smart appliances) that are typically too small to participate in Nord Pool directly.
• By aggregating demand response capacity, Energy Coop enables these smaller resources to collectively access Nord Pool’s day-ahead and intraday markets.

2. AI-Driven Automated Trading

• Energy Coop’s AI-powered high-frequency trading (HFT) bots analyze real-time market signals from Nord Pool and autonomously execute trades based on demand-supply fluctuations.
• This allows Energy Coop users to optimize their energy usage and sales, responding dynamically to Nord Pool’s price volatility.

3. Smart Contract-Based Transaction Settlement

• Unlike traditional energy contracts, Energy Coop facilitates automated, short-term trading through its contract less settlement system.
• This enables instant validation and execution of transactions between participants without requiring long-term, binding agreements.

4. Local Energy Trading & Price Arbitrage

• Energy Coop can also function as a local energy trading hub, allowing participants to trade peer-to-peer (P2P) within their network before interacting with Nord Pool.
• This helps users exploit price differences between the local energy market and Nord Pool, maximizing economic returns.

5. API Integration for Seamless Market Access

• Energy Coop offers APIs that integrate directly with Nord Pool’s trading systems, allowing its users to execute trades as efficiently as larger market players.

Truman Data provides ForeCoop IoT devices and Energy Coop technologies to optimize energy flexibility and trading. Our pricing is based on four core revenue streams:

ICT services & open platform access (API subscriptions & high-speed trading bots).

ForeCoop IoT device-related costs (hardware, installation, maintenance, and optimization).

Energy consumption reduction (performance-based pricing on savings).

Marketplace commissions (1% fee on trading transactions and 20% for full service, including SaaS compensations, i.e., as an OPEX EUR 0 service).

Price levels for active, automated trading are not straightforward and depend on several factors, such as where in the EU the prosumer operates.

One Finnish city, based on data from summer 2025, showed that the energy savings of 70 city-owned buildings exceeded the direct cash flow from flexibility trading of these properties. However, the value creation, i.e., increasing the balance sheet value through trading, outperformed the cash flow from flexibility trading. Connecting an asset to the energy market also grants one LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) point for the property, which further increases its value.

The calculations regarding the cash flow:

Truman Data’s engineering trainee connected over a dozen city-owned buildings to the Energy Coop platform’s ForeCoop energy management system. The annual electricity consumption of these buildings was 4,565,553kWh. Based on this data, Truman Data’s market analysis team calculated the total annual consumption of all 70 city-owned buildings at 15,275,553kWh.

The following cash flow calculations are for the portfolio of 70 city-owned buildings:

• Average electricity price in Finland (incl. energy, transmission, and tax): EUR 0.15/kWh
• Combined annual savings from energy consumption reductions and flexibility trading: EUR 432,633

Source: Technical appendix by the Truman Data Ltd. data science team

The core idea is to participate in the market actively every day, capitalizing on small trades executed at high volume. While the profit margin from a single trade may only be a few cents, frequent market monitoring, daily, hourly, and every 15 minutes, allows income to accumulate steadily over time. In addition, the ForeCoop software can precisely adjust energy use in the built environment, generating 15 to 40% energy savings.

Source: Technical appendix by the Truman Data Ltd. data science team

The system allows any kind and size of demand response to be traded, starting from as low as 10 kWh within seconds, at an optimal price without market limitations. This is possible because the innovative model aggregates small energy assets from various addresses and multiple energy dimensions within the same built environment (such as BESS, solar solutions, wind, or buildings). These assets are then bundled into a large, tradable flexible energy unit in real time, enabling demand response buyers to access energy from buildings anytime and anywhere, automatically, without human intervention.

Energy Coop is not just a virtual power plant, it’s a comprehensive ICT and software platform designed to manage and monetize flexible energy, which includes both electricity and heating. With scalable cloud solution and open API platform, Truman Data’s services empower energy companies, real estate owners, and cities to optimize and control energy use across multiple energy vectors, enabling the full potential of energy coupling in real-time.

Solar and wind power will become the largest energy source in the Nordic countries in 2025 and in the rest of Europe by 2026, and since the electricity market will be based on day-ahead forecasts for production and consumption starting next year, the movement of wind gusts and cloud formations will need to be predicted with 15-minute accuracy. Similarly, electric vehicle charging, battery charging and discharging cycles, and peak power reductions through various methods must also be estimated with the same 15-minute precision.

This will continuously cause unplanned fluctuations in electricity production, which even in the future battery parks will only be able to compensate for 15% due to increasing electricity consumption, i.e., the ongoing electrification of society. The same issue will occur on the consumption side: production will still fail to sufficiently anticipate where and how much electricity will be needed compared to the previous day. As a result, it will remain difficult to produce and sell the exact amount of energy needed for each day.

Fluctuations will become impossible to accurately predict at both the generation and consumption ends. And when forecasting errors occur, flexible energy production or demand-side flexibility will be required to balance the system.

The IEA estimates that the required amount of energy flexibility will increase tenfold by 2030, with half of it needing to come from buildings, that is, from the existing consumption base, since no alternative sources will be available to provide it by then.

However, the current market lacks an incentive model that makes this flexibility appealing to property owners, allowing them to set conditions based on their own business operations and consumption patterns. The only exception is the Energy Coop system, which enables such a framework.

In the summer, if you go to the lakefront after the sauna, you’ll notice how both sunshine and wind can change dramatically within just an hour. In contrast, the electricity system must maintain a constant balance between production and consumption, it needs to be both flexible and precisely aligned with grid requirements, down to the second.

As electricity pricing shifts to fifteen-minute intervals, production and consumption can be adjusted more efficiently in response to market signals. This helps reduce the cost pressures of maintaining grid balance but simultaneously increases the constant demand for flexibility, exactly what the Energy Coop model was designed to provide.

Demand is growing for hybrid models that integrate multiple consumption or control systems across several energy markets simultaneously. There is also rising interest in customer-specific, closed virtual power plants based on Energy Coop technology, particularly among large customers such as owners of extensive real estate portfolios and major electricity consumers like nationwide grocery and retail chains. Similarly, city-specific energy companies and providers serving large industrial users, such as hydroelectric producers, are also driving demand for these solutions.

The transition to a quarterly-minute balance response will increase the need for flexibility (to trade up or down) and create new opportunities for the Energy Coop system and other similar solution providers to meet this demand, as flexibility markets are expected to grow tenfold within the next ten years.

Smart systems are becoming increasingly common as consumers and businesses adopt automation to reduce their electricity costs. With pricing becoming more dynamic, new opportunities for significant savings are emerging, though price spikes are also expected to become more frequent under the new 15-minute rule, assuming producers and consumers have the necessary technology to adapt.
As the electricity grid demands greater flexibility, solutions like battery storage, demand response, and high-frequency trading (HFT) will play an increasingly critical role. This is especially true when supported by a multi-level market and an ICT model capable of understanding and controlling targets, precisely what Truman Data Ltd.’s Energy Coop platform is designed to deliver.

In the report “Fingrid: Itsenäisen aggregoinnin työryhmän loppuraportti” (translated: Fingrid: Final Report of Finland’s Energy Stakeholders’ Working Group on Independent Aggregation), published on February 27, 2025, the task force concluded that so-called “free aggregators” should also be treated as balance-responsible market operators. However, this has not yet been confirmed, and the issue remains open.

A free aggregator in the electricity market means a market participant that can aggregate and manage the flexible electricity consumption and production of several different customers without having to be tied to a specific electricity supplier or network operator.

Balance-responsible parties, such as electricity retailers, energy companies, and large consumers, can leverage the Energy Coop marketplace in several ways to optimize energy usage, reduce costs, and improve balance management.

1. Utilizing Flexibility in Balance Management

• Balance-responsible parties can buy and sell energy consumption flexibility in real-time.
• This enables them to balance forecast the actual consumption, reducing the need for imbalance power and the associated costs.

2. Access to Demand Response and Balancing Markets

• Energy Coop enables participation in flexibility markets, such as balancing and frequency regulation markets.
• Balance-responsible entities can procure flexible capacity directly from buildings and energy producers, bypassing traditional intermediaries.

3. Optimization of Distributed Energy Resources

• The platform supports integration of solar power, battery systems, and other distributed energy resources into balance management.
• It enables the use of predictive analytics and automated control to manage balance deviations.

4. Cost Savings and New Revenue Streams

• Reduces exposure to electricity market price volatility through predictable flexibility.
• Creates new business opportunities by enabling users to offer flexibility services to other market participants.

Energy Coop provides balance-responsible parties with a technological and market-based solution that makes flexibility utilization efficient, cost-effective, and scalable.

Currently, there are no valid compensation methods proposed for free aggregators in the market. To address this, Fingrid convened a working group composed of market stakeholders. Their report, “Fingrid: Itsenäisen aggregoinnin työryhmän loppuraportti” (translated: Fingrid: Final Report of Finland’s Energy Stakeholders’ Working Group on Independent Aggregation), was published on February 27, 2025.

https://www.fingrid.fi/globalassets/dokumentit/fi/tiedotteet/ajankohtaista/itsenaisen-aggregoinnin-tyoryhman-loppuraportti.pdf

In it, the task force concluded that some form of compensation method should be implemented, covering frequency reserve, intraday, and day-ahead markets. However, the principles for calculating this compensation were left undefined, as the task force was unable to reach a consensus.

The main open questions identified were:

Responsibility for compensation costs: Should the free aggregator bear the full cost of compensation, or should it be shared among all market participants?

Reference pricing: What should be the reference price used in the compensation model? There may be two separate prices, one for fixed-price contracts and another for market-based (stock-priced) contracts. The solution is complex and could lead to market fluctuations and unintended side effects.

Rebound effect: The rebound effect must be considered, but currently, no feasible solution has been found. The task force recommends that it be disregarded in this phase.

Baseline estimation and verification: Establishing a reliable baseline remains a challenge. The possible use of Datahub data raises concerns about potential GDPR conflicts between the end user and the aggregator.

In the intraday market, the smallest tradable balancing unit is determined by the rules and practices of the specific marketplace. In Finland, the electricity market transitioned to a 15-minute balance settlement period on May 22, 2023, allowing 15-minute products to be traded in the intraday market.

This means trading can occur in 15-minute intervals. However, the minimum bid size depends on the specific rules of the marketplace. For example, in the Nord Pool FFR market, the minimum tradable volume is typically 0.1 MW (100 kW) per 15-minute period

If your flexible energy capacity is below the minimum threshold required for participation in Fingrid’s frequency reserve or intraday markets, there are still several ways to utilize and monetize that flexibility:

Sell Flexibility to Balance-Responsible Parties (BRPs)
Offer your flexibility to BRPs, who may use it for their own balancing needs. BRPs can aggregate smaller flexibility sources into their portfolios for participation in larger markets.

Aggregate Small Flexibility Sources
Use an aggregator platform like Truman Data’s Energy Coop to combine multiple small flexibility resources (e.g., from several buildings or devices). This aggregated volume can meet market thresholds and be traded collectively.

Participate in Local or Peer-to-Peer Markets
Trade flexibility in local flexibility markets or via Energy Coop’s internal marketplace with nearby consumers, producers, or grid operators. This is particularly effective in microgrids or local energy communities.

Use Flexibility for Self-Optimization
Even if you cannot participate in external markets, your flexibility can still be valuable:

Reduce peak power consumption (peak shaving).
Shift load to cheaper tariff periods.
Avoid imbalance costs for balance-responsible parties.

Energy Coop introduces a range of innovations that make flexibility markets more open, efficient, and accessible for a broader group of participants. Here’s what’s new:

1. Open and Decentralized Marketplace

• Energy Coop enables real-time trading of flexibility capacity without traditional limitations.
• Even small actors, like individual buildings or property owners, can participate through aggregation, no need to belong to a large energy company.

2. Free Aggregator Model

• Allows for a “free aggregator” approach, where energy users and producers can choose how and when to participate in flexibility markets.
• No binding to a single operator → more freedom and competition.

3. Broader Participation

• Not just large industrial customers, municipalities, real estate owners, energy companies, and households can offer their flexible energy assets to the market.
• Flexibility can come from heating systems, solar panels, battery storage, electric vehicles, or smart automation.

4. Easy Technical Integration

• Energy Coop includes ready-made APIs, data models, and control mechanisms for fast onboarding. For example, the ForeCoop IoT device allows buildings to be quickly connected to the platform.

5. New Revenue Streams

• Buildings and prosumers can sell surplus electricity or demand response into the market, not only saving costs but also generating income.
• Helps diversify the business models of utilities and municipalities.

6. Support for Balance Management

Energy Coop helps balance-responsible parties reduce imbalance costs and improve forecast accuracy using aggregated flexibility.

Finland’s electricity demand is projected to double within a decade as transportation, heating, and heavy industry all move toward electrification. The transition isn’t optional, it’s essential to meet carbon neutrality goals by 2035. The Nordics are uniquely positioned to lead this change, but success depends on how well we manage grid stability, flexibility, and cost-efficiency.

Yes, but only if flexibility becomes the norm. Transmission infrastructure projects take years. As energy consumption accelerates, temporary bottlenecks are inevitable. Energy Coop’s real-time trading and flexibility aggregation tools make it possible to balance the system dynamically, reducing the stress on physical infrastructure while ensuring energy availability.

Finland’s competitive advantage lies in onshore wind power, cost-effective, quick to deploy, and scalable thanks to vast open landscapes that allow expansion without disrupting communities or natural beauty. With these strengths, Finland is well-positioned to become a wind power superpower within the next decade.

However, the intermittent nature of wind production introduces new challenges. That’s where Energy Coop’s market model steps in, connecting distributed assets and unlocking value from flexible demand and energy storage.

Nuclear is no longer competitive in this landscape. It’s too expensive, too slow, and outpaced by the plummeting costs of renewables. Even small modular reactors (SMRs) won’t play a significant role in Finland’s 2040 energy mix. Instead, smarter use of existing renewable energy and demand-side flexibility, as enabled by Energy Coop, will take the lead.

By the 2030s, battery systems will be standard in most commercial buildings, and electric vehicles will serve as storage units in over half of Finnish homes. However, individual household batteries remain risky for now due to volatile reserve markets.

With Energy Coop, aggregated small-scale flexibility, from buildings, batteries, and prosumers, can be pooled into meaningful volumes, making participation in energy markets safer, easier, and more profitable.

Not quite. While offshore wind remains twice as expensive as onshore alternatives, it’s a future option worth developing. Until then, scaling flexible onshore solutions, supported by platforms like Energy Coop, is the most cost-effective path forward.

Without wind investments, in Finland electricity prices would resemble today’s worst-case scenarios, those sharp price spikes during calm weather. Wind power has already helped stabilize costs. But its continued growth depends on how efficiently we manage flexibility.

Energy Coop provides the missing piece: real-time optimization and monetization of flexibility, which keeps prices predictable and systems stable.

Solar is growing fast globally and will have a supporting role in Finland. Nordic companies must compete with solar-heavy regions, so efficiency and flexibility are key.

Hydropower remains dominant in Sweden and Norway. In Finland, capacity is maxed out, but it continues to play a stabilizing role.

The geopolitical landscape has pushed Finland and Sweden away from fossil fuels, insulating them from global volatility. Strong Nordic-Baltic cooperation will be essential as the region integrates with Central Europe’s still fossil-reliant systems.

Energy Coop isn’t just another energy management tool, it’s a market-enabling platform that empowers cities, utilities, and businesses to become active players in the flexibility economy. It’s designed for:

• Real-time trading of distributed energy resources
• Seamless integration of prosumers and energy storage
• Participation in all major flexibility and reserve markets
• Scalability across cities, campuses, and portfolios

Additionally, Energy Coop is a comprehensive ICT and software platform designed to manage and monetize flexible energy, which includes both electricity and heating. Truman Data’s services empower energy companies, real estate owners, and cities to optimize and control energy use across multiple energy vectors, enabling the full potential of energy coupling in real-time.

As the energy system becomes more decentralized and dynamic, Energy Coop stands as a future-ready solution to turn volatility into opportunity, for everyone.