Definition
BPO stands for Business Process Outsourcing: a provider takes over the execution of a defined business process on the client's behalf, accountable for the outcome and not merely for the tooling. In the power industry this most often means metering dataData from electricity meters - the foundation for billing, balance settlement and market processes in the power market. handling, settlementTurning metering data into money. Consumption and production per metering point become what each party owes or is owed. and invoicing - the processes between the meter and the invoice. A BPO company runs them for several energy companies at once, typically on its own platform. This is what separates BPO from its two neighbouring categories: a software vendor sells a system the client operates itself, a consultancy supplies capacity within the client's own projects, whereas a BPO company replaces the function itself. Scale is the essential technical difference: the same error handling, the same ElhubNational hub for metering data and market processes in the Norwegian electricity market. integration and the same regulations must work across many client portfolios at once, kept separate from one another.