EirGrid plays a pivotal role in Ireland’s energy sector. As the licensed Single Electricity Market Operator (SEM) for both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, EirGrid ensures the smooth transmission of electricity across the island. Its operations are essential to maintaining a competitive, sustainable, and reliable electricity market. 

Through its websites, EirGrid offers essential market data, from real-time demand and generation information to market prices and interconnector flows between Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Great Britain. Keeping these platforms updated, reliable, and user-friendly is critical to ensuring energy transparency and facilitating the operation of the all-island electricity market.

As the operator of the Single Electricity Market, EirGrid was challenged with managing multiple websites catering to different audiences. These platforms needed to be reliable and accessible, providing critical data to the public and market participants alike. The challenge wasn’t just maintaining the websites, but ensuring they could process and present vast amounts of data in real-time, with complete transparency and accuracy.

EirGrid also needed to migrate historical data from previous market versions to ensure regulatory compliance—all while upgrading its web infrastructure to handle current and future demands. Balancing data accuracy, real-time performance, and a smooth user experience was crucial to EirGrid’s success.

DEPT® took on the challenge by acting as the digital lynchpin between EirGrid’s internal teams, providing site management and DevOps support to ensure seamless operation. A key focus was building a custom data processing platform capable of handling the enormous volumes of market data that EirGrid processes daily.

This platform processes over 100 different types of reports, from day-ahead electricity prices to intraday data. DEPT® implemented a dynamic system that allows users to access data through either downloadable static or dynamic reports that allow users to query specific data in real-time. This dual approach ensures that different types of market participants—regulators, energy companies, and consumers—can review the information they need in a format that suits their requirements.

To ensure performance and scalability, DEPT® selected MongoDB as the database solution, providing the speed and reliability necessary for handling large datasets. The bespoke platform allows EirGrid to continually upload data in CSV and XML formats, with the system automatically polling for new reports and handling them according to specific configuration rules. 

DEPT® also developed an API that allows users to integrate EirGrid’s data into their own internal systems, ensuring flexibility and broader use of the market’s data assets.

Another significant aspect of our partnership involved migrating legacy data from a previous SEM version, ensuring that historical market data remained publicly accessible to meet regulatory requirements. Despite the logistical hurdles—such as the lack of access to the original source code—we used our newly developed SEM platform to house and manage this older data seamlessly alongside current market information.

Through DEPT®’s efforts, EirGrid now operates with enhanced digital infrastructure, allowing for smoother website performance, increased data transparency, and faster, more reliable data processing. While we continue the migration of EirGrid’s sites, the new platform strengthens their ability to meet regulatory requirements while providing a more user-friendly interface for market participants. 

DEPT® remains responsible for managing EirGrid’s digital ecosystem, ensuring that the people of Ireland and Northern Ireland have uninterrupted access to critical energy data.

By facilitating the integration of Ireland’s electricity market with other markets, EirGrid can continue to contribute to a future of competitive, sustainable, and reliable electricity provision.