Evolving energy systems and the expanding role of market facilitation
The pressure on energy systems is increasingly evident. Rapid electrification, intermittent renewable energy generation, grid congestion and growing expectations around customer participation are all happening in real time. While the level of market maturity and regulatory liberalization varies significantly across regions, these pressures are increasingly visible in both advanced and emerging energy systems. The boundary of the energy system has expanded from bi-directional flow to incorporate multi-dimensional flow of energy, data and value.
Energy market facilitators—system operators, market operators or regulated coordinating bodies, depending on the geography—face many shared challenges that require them to navigate energy ecosystems in transition, despite variations in regulation and underlying local market drivers. As the landscape evolves, new services continue to shape how market facilitation is approached. Key areas of focus include enabling the markets for flexibility services, improving the efficiency of data sharing, and leveraging emerging technologies to strengthen and adapt the market.
These are not separate workstreams, but interdependent capabilities. Flexibility cannot scale without data sharing. Data sharing is valuable when it supports real operational decisions. And emerging technologies create real system value only when governance and market design evolve alongside them.
Five important considerations:
- Flexibility is moving from ambition to execution
The focus is no longer only on why flexibility is needed, but on how to make it accessible and valuable.
- Data sharing is becoming the central nervous system of energy system operations
Real-time, well-governed (or progressively governed, where frameworks are still emerging) and interoperable data exchange is essential for effective decision-making and system coordination.
- Market architecture defines data architecture
Trusted sharing of data will be delivered through different degrees of centralization and decentralization, depending on a country’s energy imperatives and market structure.
- Emerging technologies are accelerating the need to act
Emerging technologies can either strain the system or unlock value. Ensuring that it is value that is unlocked depends on the pace at which market rules and coordination can evolve.
- Coordination is becoming a strategic market facilitation capability
The focus is shifting from control to enablement: identifying and addressing issues by engaging stakeholders and agreeing on actions.
Flexibility is moving from ambition to execution
Flexibility is one of the most urgent priorities in the energy landscape. The case for it is well understood: it can help relieve grid congestion, minimize costly infrastructure reinforcement and enable better use of renewable energy generation. The challenge is to establish the conditions that enable actors across the energy system to access and create value from flexibility.
Related barriers include inefficient coordination between actors, unclear priority rules and the complexity of stacking flexibility services. The same physical asset may be capable of providing flexibility to satisfy different system needs, either simultaneously or at different times. The commercial routes to access and value that flexibility can compete with one another. Without clear roles, rights and timing, conflicts quickly emerge. For now, a rules-based approach—often complemented by market signals and bilateral arrangements—appears to be the predominant way to manage those tensions.
Seen together, these barriers point to the same conclusion: flexibility should be understood as a property of the physical assets comprising the energy system, providing the means through which different actors create value from it, and conflicts and synergies are effectively managed.
Data sharing is becoming the central nervous system of energy system operations
Data sharing requires richer, well-timed and better-governed data exchange across system actors. This goes beyond meter readings. The future model increasingly depends on controlled access to asset information, event-based updates and precise charging and consumption signals in support of (ever-nearer) real-time decisions.
No single data architecture fits all markets
Centralized models (e.g., common data hubs implemented in some markets) are often better suited to support data quality monitoring, common services, interoperability and settlement. On the other hand, decentralized models (e.g., federated or platform-based approaches seen in other regions) usually have the advantage of timely access to high-velocity datasets through distributed data storage and access architectures, but typically involve greater coordination complexity.
As the energy system becomes more distributed, a hybrid approach may prove most effective: using centralized or decentralized models according to the purpose, the data need and the structure of the market in each country. In increasingly interconnected regions, interoperability across markets and jurisdictions is becoming an additional layer of complexity and opportunity.
As noted in CGI’s Energy Flexibility for Dummies, “Successful approaches in one country can inform how another country approaches solving the challenge in the context of their market.” The challenge is to understand why an approach delivered success (or not), considering these issues:
- What are the drivers in the local market?
- What are the differences between drivers in another market?
- What’s relevant? Dismiss what’s not.
The experience of others may stimulate some new thinking that is relevant to your market.
Emerging technologies are accelerating the need to act
The pace of change is real: emerging technologies are moving faster than the flexibility rules and coordination mechanisms meant to support them. That can become either a risk if the sector reacts too slowly, or create an opportunity when market facilitators are able to respond quickly.
Electric vehicles (alongside other distributed energy sources such as rooftop solar, batteries and flexible loads) provide a useful illustration. They can be seen as a threat to energy quality and system balance or as a readily available, distributed power resource. Left unmanaged, they can add pressure to already constrained networks. Integrated intelligently, they can become a meaningful source of flexibility. The difference depends on access rules, settlement design, and the ability of different actors to coordinate around the same resource. In practice, every battery, every EV and every smart appliance is an asset that, in combination, create a flexibility infrastructure, providing a tool for grid stability and a potential source of revenue or cost optimization for consumers, depending on the market design.
AI-driven automation can be seen in a similar light. Its promise lies, for example, in improving decision-making, forecasting and orchestration in an increasingly dynamic market. However, automation alone does not remove the need for high-quality data, clear governance and trusted operating models. In fact, the more automated the market, the more important those foundations become.
Coordination is becoming a strategic market facilitation capability
Taken together, approaches in one country can offer valuable insights for tackling similar challenges in another, if adapted to the local market context. The key is understanding why an approach succeeded (or failed), comparing market drivers and focusing on what’s relevant. Done well, others’ experiences can spark new ideas for your own market.
Related to this, it is evident that market facilitation is evolving into a strategic coordination function. It means reducing barriers, aligning processes and enabling interoperability. It also means shifting from trying to define and control every outcome toward a more enabling role: expressing needs transparently, identifying issues and agreeing on actions.
The challenge now is to treat flexibility as a system capability in relation to physical assets, supported by appropriate governance and commercial arrangements. It also means making data sharing a trusted operating model and turning emerging technologies into practical system value.
For market facilitators, this is no longer a future agenda. The task ahead is to embrace change, guide it with the right support and help the market capture opportunities rather than be overtaken by them, regardless of the starting point or market structure.
