The exception to everything above
The first two parts were about differences: four countries, three hubs, several formats, no shared standard.
There is one exception, and it is a large one. Imbalance settlementProcess where the difference between planned and actual power exchange is reconciled - essential for the power market to function. really is Nordic.
eSett OyThe company performing imbalance settlement for balance responsible parties across the Nordics, jointly owned by the four transmission system operators. was founded in 2013 by Svenska kraftnätSweden's system operator for the transmission network - equivalent to Statnett's role in Norway., FingridFinland's transmission system operator - owns and operates the Finnish high-voltage grid and runs the Finnish Datahub. and StatnettNorway's system operator for the transmission grid - owns and operates the high-voltage network and operates Elhub., with the aim of establishing one joint imbalance settlementProcess where the difference between planned and actual power exchange is reconciled - essential for the power market to function. for Sweden, Finland and Norway. In 2017 the company took over operational responsibility for settling and invoicing market participants in those three countries. Denmark followed: EnerginetDenmark's system operator for electricity and gas - operates the transmission network and runs DataHub Denmark for market data exchange. became a shareholder in 2019, and the Danish market was integrated from 1 February 2021.
Ownership is now split equally between the four transmission system operators, 25 per cent each. Every balance responsible partyBalance Responsible Party - actor responsible for balancing production and consumption in its portfolio against the system operator. in the Nordics follows the same settlementTurning metering data into money. Consumption and production per metering point become what each party owes or is owed. rules and has the same operator.
What the job consists of
A balance responsible partyBalance Responsible Party - actor responsible for balancing production and consumption in its portfolio against the system operator. submits a plan for what will be produced and consumed. Then reality happens, and it is never quite the plan.
The difference is the imbalance, and it has to be settled in money. Some delivered more than they said, some less, and the system has to add up to zero. That is what eSettThe company performing imbalance settlement for balance responsible parties across the Nordics, jointly owned by the four transmission system operators. calculates and invoices.
Before this, the same calculation was done separately in each country, with its own deadlines, its own formats and its own processes. A party holding balance responsibility in two countries had to deal with two arrangements for the same sum, without anything about the physics being different.
Why this particular part became shared
It is not accidental which part of the chain could be gathered, and the explanation is useful well beyond eSettThe company performing imbalance settlement for balance responsible parties across the Nordics, jointly owned by the four transmission system operators..
Imbalance settlementProcess where the difference between planned and actual power exchange is reconciled - essential for the power market to function. is a calculation, not a customer relationship. It concerns schedules, measured volumes and prices. It does not touch how a customer switches supplier, how a meter is read, or who owns the customer relationship. Those are precisely the things regulated nationally, and precisely what separates the countries.
The counterparty is the same everywhere. Each country has one transmission system operatorTransmission System Operator - responsible for operation and balance of the transmission grid at national level., and the four own the company together. That is four parties who have to agree, not a thousand.
The gain is directly measurable. Four calculations becoming one is a cost that disappears, and it is easy to quantify.
Compare that with a hub for metering data: there the counterparties are every grid company and every supplier in the country, the rules are national regulation, and the gain is shared unevenly between the parties. That is an entirely different negotiation, and it explains why three countries spent nine years getting there separately while the fourth is still waiting.
The picture from a company in two countries
What meets you looks roughly like this:
metering data and market processes national, different in each country,
and in Sweden without a hub
message formats EdielNordic profile of the EDI EDIFACT standard - used for electronic message exchange in the Nordic power market via Elhub., eBIX or a national APIApplication Programming Interface - standardised interface that allows two systems to communicate with each other.
imbalance settlementProcess where the difference between planned and actual power exchange is reconciled - essential for the power market to function. shared rules, shared operator, all Nordics
The practical advice that follows is dull and worth money: plan for one integration per market for everything concerning metering data, and one arrangement for imbalance settlementProcess where the difference between planned and actual power exchange is reconciled - essential for the power market to function.. Anyone setting the project up the other way round, assuming the Nordics are shared and discovering the exceptions along the way, discovers them late.
What could change
Two things are worth watching.
The Swedish hub. The law arrived in June 2026 after a decade. If the hub enters service, the description above changes for the largest of the four markets, and a company with Swedish operations gets an entirely different integration to deal with than today.
The resolution. Quarter-hourly settlementTurning metering data into money. Consumption and production per metering point become what each party owes or is owed. is European, not Nordic, and it affects all four countries. Shared requirements from outside are historically what has moved the Nordics closest together.
Where we stand in this
We build for Norway first, and that is not a modesty phrase. SAMTYGDTvimenning platform for Elhub integration - handles all message types and processes to Elhub. is our integration layer towards ElhubNational hub for metering data and market processes in the Norwegian electricity market. and runs in production. That part is finished.
The Nordics are the direction, and it starts with mapping, not with code. This series is part of that work: four markets, three hubs, several formats, and one shared imbalance settlementProcess where the difference between planned and actual power exchange is reconciled - essential for the power market to function.. We write it down because we need to know it ourselves before promising anything, and because half of what we thought we knew about Sweden turned out to be out of date when we checked.
Two products point that way, and they stand differently.
SEFTATvimenning’s VEE engine: validates, estimates and edits metering series with versioned time series and a full audit trail, before data goes to Elhub., our metering valueOne measurement from one metering point for one period of time. The building block all settlement rests on. engine, is built for more than one market. It is verified against simulated market interfaces, not in operation at a customer.
HANDSALTvimenning’s EDI server for bilateral message exchange: receives, translates, routes and acknowledges messages between companies and marketplaces. is the EDIFACTElectronic Data Interchange For Administration, Commerce and Transport - UN standard for electronic data exchange. server, the transport layer for where there is no hub to send to. That is precisely the situation in Sweden today. We can demonstrate it here, but it is not yet verified against market interfaces.
The order matters: a market without a hub needs a transport layer before it needs anything else. We do not sell a multi-country delivery before both parts have been tried against reality, and we will say so when they have.