This project involves a cost estimate for the introduction of structured electronic transfer and processing of network settlement data for Austria. An analysis of the existing system landscape is carried out to establish whether it is possible to implement the receiving and processing of electronic network invoices on the basis of the market rules published by E-Control and the test files provided by potential test partners. The necessary adjustments are determined. Furthermore, the associated communication path for electronic data reception in the XML format is designed. Finally, a cost estimate is drawn up, taking account of all the system components that are to be adjusted and the necessary integration tests.
Supplement
The existing system landscape is primarily based on a three-layer, service-oriented architecture consisting of .Net-based thin clients, application servers and MS SQL 2005 database servers. A secure FTP connection shall be set up to receive the messages in XML format. An existing .Net application can be used to save the messages and the associated metadata for archiving. The files are transferred to a BizTalk server 2006 R2 and transformed to an in-house format. Finally, the files are forwarded to the target application (the document processing and information system) where the functional data processing takes place.
Subject description
E-Control GmbH (ECG) was set up by the Austrian legislative body on the basis of the Energy Deregulation Act. Its task is to monitor and supervise the deregulation of the Austrian electricity and gas market and intervene regulatively, if necessary. The Austrian Federal government retains 100% of the shares in Energie-Control GmbH. Managing this stock is the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of the Economy. According to E-Control’s specifications, network operators (starting from different key dates, depending on the size of their customer base) are obliged to forward network settlement data to suppliers by electronic means, if requested by service recipients (energy consuming customers). Unlike the structured data transmission in Germany, governed by the GPKE (Portrayal of business processes for initiating and processing network access when delivering electricity to customers), in Austria this is merely data reception.