IN Brief:
- Data-domain coordinators would oversee standards, quality, accessibility, and interoperability.
- Initial work would define each domain and map its participating organisations.
- Ofgem’s consultation remains open until 8 September 2026.
Ofgem has proposed technical, governance, and operational requirements for organisations coordinating energy data domains across Great Britain.
The role forms part of the joint Energy Digitalisation Framework and is intended to improve how data is standardised, described, accessed, and shared between networks, system operators, suppliers, code bodies, technology providers, and other market participants.
Under the proposal, each data-domain coordinator would support a defined part of the energy system. Its responsibilities would cover data quality, standardisation, interoperability, discoverability, accessibility, and coordination with organisations working across related domains.
Coordinators would also engage with companies that hold and use data, including smaller organisations without the technical resources or influence of established system participants. Governance processes would cover accountability, reporting, and the management of boundaries between adjacent data domains.
Initial outputs would include a formal definition of the relevant domain, a map of participating organisations and users, and a clearer scope for the coordinator’s responsibilities. Establishing those boundaries is intended to reduce duplication while identifying data gaps and interfaces that currently lack effective ownership.
The consultation applies to prospective coordinators, electricity and gas networks, suppliers, system operators, code bodies, digital service providers, and representative organisations. The proposed guidance remains subject to consultation before the final requirements are adopted.
Interoperability becomes part of normal system operation
Energy data has historically been created for separate engineering, commercial, regulatory, or settlement processes. Different identifiers, formats, update cycles, access controls, and quality rules can make those datasets difficult to combine, even when they describe connected parts of the same system.
As operational decisions extend across organisational boundaries, that fragmentation becomes harder to accommodate. Distribution flexibility, demand forecasting, outage coordination, connection planning, electric vehicle charging, storage dispatch, and whole-system modelling all draw on information produced by several participants.
A domain structure can establish clearer ownership without placing every dataset under a single central organisation. Coordinators would create common expectations and technical interfaces, while individual data holders retained responsibility for the underlying information, its accuracy, and its lawful use.
Standardisation must extend beyond file formats because consistent naming, asset identifiers, timestamps, units, geographical references, update frequencies, quality measures, and metadata are all required if machines and people are to interpret information without repeated manual reconciliation.
Recent Strategic Innovation Fund awards for digitalisation and flexibility included work on digital twins, local balancing, robotics, and cyber resilience. Each of those areas depends on reliable data interfaces if projects are to progress from isolated trials into routine network use.
A digital twin may combine network topology, asset condition, measured loading, weather, connection queues, and forecast demand. Poorly aligned timestamps or inconsistent asset identifiers can undermine the model even where each source dataset appears accurate when viewed independently.
Flexibility markets face similar constraints because participants need to understand where a service is required, how availability will be measured, which baseline applies, and whether dispatch has delivered the expected network effect. Standardised data can reduce transaction cost, provided responsibilities for validation and correction remain clear.
Accessibility does not mean that every dataset should be fully open. Critical infrastructure information, personal data, commercially sensitive records, and cyber-relevant network details require controlled access, so the framework must distinguish between discoverability, authorised use, and unrestricted publication.
Smaller organisations are particularly exposed to the practical burden of compliance. Common schemas and clear documentation can lower barriers, whereas extensive reporting requirements or bespoke technical processes could favour larger participants, making Ofgem’s proposed engagement obligations an important part of each coordinator’s remit.
Governance will become more complex where domains overlap. Metering data, asset data, flexibility data, and connection information may support the same operational decision while remaining subject to different rules, requiring coordinators to resolve conflicting standards and establish which source should be treated as authoritative.
The framework also needs a workable route for standards to evolve because new technologies, regulatory changes, and operational practices will create additional fields and interfaces. A standard that cannot be amended efficiently risks becoming another legacy constraint, particularly where earlier versions remain in use across long-lived network systems.
Cyber security will run through each domain, since stronger interoperability can widen the number of systems and organisations exchanging data. Access controls, identity management, logging, change management, and the treatment of third-party interfaces will need to develop alongside the technical standards.
Responses can be submitted through the data-domain coordinator consultation until 8 September 2026. The first practical test will be whether the resulting domains establish usable standards and clear accountability across existing organisational and regulatory boundaries.
