Nettalliansen is a strategic alliance owned by 30 small and medium-sized power companies across Norway. Although the power companies in the alliance are relatively small in size, Nettalliansen as a whole constitutes one of the largest operators in the Norwegian energy market – and is a key player in safeguarding local Norwegian communities.
Nettalliansen’s strategy is to make the power companies stronger and more efficient – by working together and in the same way. They also function as a common procurement centre and procure both materials and IT solutions.
According to Lars Eirik Olsen, Nettalliansen’s project director, in recent years the organisation has been in a digitalisation race in which the power companies have been moved forward to embrace modern methods. In order to make processes as smooth as possible, they have standardised and ensured that all the companies operate in the same way.
“Digitalisation is an on-going process as technology development moves at record speed. We work continuously to develop our industry solutions and meet the IT needs of the power companies in combined solutions. With 30 different companies under one umbrella, it’s a great advantage that everyone follows the same work processes,” says Olsen.
In 2015, Nettalliansen entered into a cooperation agreement with Embriq to roll out and operate Nettalliansen’s 200,000 AMS meters. In addition to the AMS agreement, Embriq is a turnkey supplier of IT operations to Nettalliansen and performs full monitoring of all IT systems from operations centres in Norway and Sweden. As part of this turnkey delivery, Quant Flow is also included as Nettalliansen’s integration platform.
Professional partner
Nettalliansen follows the rules for public tenders, and choosing Embriq as a supplier was therefore not a decision that was made overnight.
“Embriq outscored the others in the tender because they were the supplier that was able to deliver everything we needed. We’re a small company with eight employees and represent other small companies, so we don’t have the apparatus that the giants of the industry have. Precisely for this reason, a professional partner like Embriq is invaluable. Of course, price also played a role, but that was far from the most important factor,” says Olsen.
The project manager is very pleased with the collaboration with Embriq, but admits that there have been disagreements along the way. However, he emphasises that the disagreements have been resolved effectively every time and never at the expense of the partnership whose focus has always been to work together to achieve the best solutions.
“Professional partnerships are all about give and take, and in our experience this works very well. This is precisely the way it should be,” he says and adds:
“It’s difficult to predict what will happen in the industry, but that’s also one of the reasons that we need an expert like Embriq. They employ specialists who know everything about energy and IT.”
One of the contracts Nettalliansen has with Embriq is drawing to a close. Olsen confirms that, irrespective of the outcome of the next tender, they will maintain a relationship with Embriq.
“We’re very pleased with Embriq so they’ll definitely be part of the next tender process. We like working together and hope to keep up our close dialogue going forward,” he says.
About Nettalliansen
Nettalliansen started up in 2009 with eight power companies. Now it comprises around 30. Even though each company is relatively small in size, together they form one of the largest operators in the energy market in Norway. Nettalliansen works to make power companies stronger and more efficient by ensuring that they work closely together and implement similar processes.
Embriq provides the following services:
AMS meters
Quant (Quant Insight and Quant Flow)
Office 365
Firewalls
Full monitoring of IT systems