Energy and utilities software development for the data you have to defend and the data you trade on.
We build the layer around the systems that already own your energy data: meter and telemetry ingestion, trading and settlement feeds, billing platforms, and the reporting over the top.
The system of record here usually belongs to a vendor. The work is getting data out reliably, keeping one versioned copy, and stopping the reporting path and the trading path strangling each other.
- 120+Projects delivered across 12 countries since 2012
- 100+Senior in-house engineers, six countries
- 2 to 4 weeksTypical time from signature to start
- ISTQBCertified QA inside every sprint
- ISO 27001Certified security practice, audited by Quay Audit UK
01Overview
What energy and utilities software has to hold together
Energy and utilities software development is the building, integration and modernization of the systems that measure, trade, bill and report energy: meter and telemetry ingestion, deal capture and settlement, billing and customer platforms, and the regulatory reporting over the top. The system of record usually belongs to a vendor, so the work is the layer around it. Our published work is on the trading and data side, a B2B commodity-trading platform for a Milan trader; CTRM and ETRM and EV charging have their own pages.
- Measure and monitorWhat comes off a physical asset, at a rate nobody controls.
- Meter and telemetry ingestion
- SCADA and historian reads
- Asset and network data
- Trade and settleThe commercial side of the same readings: bought, delivered, owed.
- Deal capture and position
- Scheduling and nominations
- Invoicing and settlement
- Bill and serveWhere a consumption figure becomes a number somebody disputes.
- Billing and CIS integration
- Customer and field portals
- Tariff and consumption data
- Account and reportThe part you are judged on later, always after the fact.
- Regulatory submissions
- Emissions and sustainability
- Desk and board reporting
02Compare
Regulated data and traded data are not the same data
Both come off the same meters, which is why they end up in one place and then fight. Regulated data has to be reproducible months later, corrections and all. Traded data has to be current, and can be superseded a minute later. Five sentences we hear. The last ends in advice not to build anything.
| What we hear | Why it hurts | What we would do |
|---|---|---|
| “One warehouse serves the traders and the regulator.” | Month-end reporting and the desk queuing for one box | Two paths off one ingest: an append-only store the regulated extract is rebuilt from, and a fast read model the desk queries.Data and reporting engineeringOr book a meeting |
| “The same meter and market data lands in four systems, four times.” | Four numbers, and a meeting about which is right | Land it once, version every correction, serve it downstream, rather than four systems pulling their own copy on their own clock.Platform development and integrationOr book a meeting |
| “A regulator asked what the figure was in March and nobody can rebuild it.” | Reconstructing a month by hand, on somebody else’s deadline | An append-only record of every reading, estimate and correction as it stood at the time, so the answer is a query.How we build custom systemsOr book a meeting |
| “Readings arrive as files and somebody types them in.” | A person a week, and an error rate nobody measures | Recognition and ingestion instead of typing, the operator confirming rather than keying. We built that in Germany, and the client measured it.How we did this in GermanyOr book a meeting |
| “Two systems disagree, so we are replacing the platform.” | A replacement project that does not fix it | Reconcile before you rebuild. Most disagreements we get called about are two systems reading one feed at different moments, which is scheduling.A technology review, not a rebuildOr book a meeting |
03Solutions
Six things we build around the systems that already own your data
We are not trying to become your system of record. SCADA, meter data management, billing and CIS platforms are vendor products with support contracts behind them.
Readings, curves and feed data landed once, versioned when corrected, and served downstream rather than pulled four times.
- Right when
- Data arrives faster than it lands
Connectors that read SCADA, a meter data platform or a CTRM package on a schedule, and never ask to become the record.
- Right when
- The record belongs to somebody else
Submissions built off a record of what each figure looked like at the time, so last quarter is answered by running something, not remembering.
- Right when
- Somebody rebuilds it every month
Consumption and billing views, partner document access, and something an engineer can use in a substation yard.
- Right when
- People phone in for a number
Models and dashboards on the readings and prices you already collect, inside the systems your team works in.
- Right when
- The forecast lives in a workbook
Every energy back office has a spreadsheet one person understands, sitting on the critical path of something regulated.
- Right when
- One workbook, one person, no backup
04Obligations
What the reporting side obliges you to do, and what we bring to it
These obligations are not about features. They decide whether a number can be reproduced, when it has to arrive, and who may see it. Three that change a build, then what unicrew brings.
Readings get corrected after the fact
Volumes settle on estimates and re-settle on actuals, so last month's figure may not be the one that stands. A row updated in place cannot say what changed.
- In a build
- Versioned readings, never overwritten
Submissions arrive on a clock
Reporting into a regulator, a market operator or a transparency platform happens inside a window, in that recipient's format. The deadline becomes a property of the data model.
- In a build
- The deadline sits in the schema
Consumption data is personal data
An interval read from a domestic meter describes when somebody is at home, which puts much of a utility platform inside GDPR whether anyone planned for it or not.
- In a build
- Retention and access, decided early
ISO 27001:2022 and ISO 9001:2015
Information security and quality management, renewed through a multi-stage audit with Quay Audit UK. Usually what a supplier questionnaire reaches for first.
- What it gives you
- A document trail that already exists
ISTQB-certified QA inside the sprint
Certified QA engineers work inside the sprint, not after it, which matters where a defect writes a wrong reading into something later billed or reported.
- What it gives you
- Defects caught before a settlement
Least-privilege access, agreed first
Contracts and NDAs before anyone starts, access agreed with your technical contact, read-only wherever the work allows, and your environment where compliance requires it.
- What it gives you
- No production write during discovery
The boundary this whole page is organised around
Everything above splits along one line: what you have to be able to defend to a regulator months later, and what simply has to be right now. Establishing which side a system sits on is the first thing we do on an energy engagement, and the reason is below.
In energy the hard boundary is between the data you must report and the data you trade on: both come off the same meters, one defensible to a regulator months later, the other right now. Blur them and you are slow where you should be fast, vague where you should be exact. A regulated path kept separate and auditable is dull architecture that stops a reporting question becoming an outage.
Vuhar MamedovManaging Partner for Europe, unicrew05Proof
What we can actually show you, and where it came from
One published commodity-trading build in this sector, and two data-heavy builds beside it. Both figures are the clients' own words, from their verified Clutch reviews.
- A trading platform, and the specialists it neededWe built a CRM and B2B marketplace for a Milan commodity trader, signing contracts as Ethereum smart contracts, under our former Artelogic brand. In his verified Clutch review, published anonymously, the co-founder and CEO writes that "they were able to use an expert that they had in-house to tackle that part of the project even though this resource wasn't on the team they assigned initially".
- Environmental accounting, at the scale it hasA German climate-tech company measures the carbon footprint of food production, feed through farm to slaughterhouse. In his verified Clutch review the CTO describes calculating "the carbon footprint and 15 other environmental factors, such as water and land use". We rebuilt that platform on React, Next.js and a Neo4j graph database.15environmental factors, in the client's own count
- Manual data entry, measured before and afterWe built a C# and AWS recognition tool for a German software company: the operator confirms rather than keys. In his verified Clutch review the CEO writes: "Two people typing data into the database went about 5,000 new data sets per month. With this component, we're reaching twice the amount of data sets per month."2xthe client's own measure of the change
06Client voices
What the clients behind those builds say
I was very satisfied with Artelogic’s project management. They were very good at organizing all the different parts of the project, and our communication was easy; they were always available and proactive. Towards the end of the project, they went the extra mile and worked longer than expected without charging for the extra time, showing a lot of commitment.
We’ve seen enhanced customer satisfaction thanks to unicrew’s work. Our customers love the UI and speed of the application. We’ve received positive feedback, and there are no errors in the system. We only fix minor UI bugs, which aren’t worth mentioning. unicrew meets their deadlines and stays on budget.
07Case studies
Three data-heavy builds, and what each had to get right
One is the sector build. The other two are the data disciplines this page argues for, where our published work on them actually is.
See all case studies
TradingSoftware for trading with Smart contractsOur client, an experienced commodities trader, came to unicrew with a detailed PRD (Product Requirements Document) to develop the trading platform.- Climate TechRebuilding a carbon-footprint SaaS platform for a European climate-tech startupunicrew embedded three full-stack developers and a UI/UX designer in a European climate-tech startup's SaaS product, rebuilding many parts of it from scratch.
- AutomationDoubling data-entry throughput with a custom recognition toolunicrew automated a manual data-entry bottleneck with a C# and AWS recognition tool, doubling the data sets the team got through each month.2xData sets processed per month
08Questions
Energy and utilities software: frequently asked questions
It is the building, integration and modernization of the systems that measure, trade, bill and report energy: meter and telemetry ingestion, deal capture and settlement, billing and customer platforms, and the reporting over the top. The systems of record are usually vendor products, so most of the work is the layer around them: data out on a schedule, one versioned copy, and the regulated and commercial uses served separately.
On the trading and data side. We publish one commodity-trading build, a private B2B marketplace and CRM for a Milan trader, with that client's verified Clutch review attached. Beside it sits data-heavy work of the same shape in adjacent sectors: environmental accounting on a graph database, and a recognition tool that removed manual data entry. We have no named utility-operator engagement on our public record.
Yes, and it is most of this work. We treat those platforms as systems of record and build around them: data out on a schedule, writes back only where the vendor supports it, and reconciliation so there is never a second version of a reading. We prove that interface against your real data first. Where a platform exposes no usable API, that layer is the first thing we build.
Three engagement models: time and materials billed hourly and quoted per project, fixed price quoted per project against an agreed outcome, and team extension billed monthly per team member. We recommend one after discovery. There is no recruitment fee on a dedicated team, and fixed-scope work carries a post-launch warranty agreed in the contract. We do not publish a price band: one metering integration and a platform build are not the same number. Most engagements start within two to four weeks of signature.
Contracts and NDAs are signed before anyone starts. Access is least-privilege, agreed with your technical contact, read-only wherever the work allows, and inside your own environment where your regulator requires it. ISTQB-certified QA engineers work inside the sprint, and unicrew holds ISO 27001:2022 and ISO 9001:2015, renewed through a multi-stage audit with Quay Audit UK. We do not hold SOC 2. Interval consumption data is personal data under GDPR, and NIS2 shapes logging and incident handling.
Yes, and both have their own page because the buyers differ. For deal capture, position keeping, settlement, or whether to build around the CTRM package you already run, read CTRM and ETRM software development, where our published trading build is written up in full. For charge points, sessions, roaming and tariffs, read EV charging software development, which starts from whether you are the charge point operator, the mobility provider, or both.
Tell us which data has to be defensible and which has to be fast
A call with a senior engineer who has shipped data-heavy and trading systems, not a sales qualifier. You leave with an opinion on where the boundary sits.
What happens after you contact us
- We reply within one business dayA senior engineer reads your message, not a bot.
- A call about the dataWhat you meter, what you trade, and which report is late.
- Route and engagement model, in writingIntegrate, build or leave alone, priced as time and materials, fixed price, or team extension.
- NDA, then discoveryMost engagements start within two to four weeks of signature.