Hochfrequenz – Operational Consulting for the German Energy Market

The energy market is a complex organism from various points of view: On the engineering side, the electrical grid always needs to be kept in balance. The transition towards green energy not only needs new innovations in wind, solar or battery technology, but these innovations need to be implemented in the running system. Then, there is the formal side of things: Rules are needed to keep the system running, and they need to be adapted to the changing times. Fast-changing technological and formal rules challenge the energy market and its players. 

The consulting company Hochfrequenz was founded to help people navigate a jungle of laws and implement them effortlessly. In today’s interview, we talk with Annika Schlögl about Hochfrequenz and her work.

Who are You?

I studied physics and found out about Hochfrequenz through an ad in the physics journal. I didn’t have much of a programming background myself, nor a technical background in the energy sector. It was very nice to see that Hochfrequenz is open to people who just want to learn: We had technical instructions for two months, and then we were able to further our education on internal software development projects. The company really took the time for us beginners.

Hochfrequenz was founded about 15 years ago by our managing directors, and they started with a handful of people. Our founders came from larger corporate houses and wanted to create a better working environment. So they used their technical expertise to start their own company. In the roughly four years I have been here, at least 30 – 40 new colleagues have joined us. We are now roundabout 100 people working here.

What is Your Product?

We operate as a consulting company in the German energy market. Every six months, existing rules are extended or changed, and all players in the market have to implement them. We support the players, for example, in integrating the new changes into their software. A large part of this is SAP development, as SAP is also a dominant player in the German energy market. We also work with other types of software. A lot of our colleagues also work in technical areas and not in the software field.

Our customer base mainly includes municipal utilities, startups and competitive metering point operators, which can be very small, once even just one person.

My area is market communication, which means that all of these players in the market have to talk to each other: for example, the network operator with the metering point operator, the metering point operator with the supplier and so on.

What is the Biggest Challenge?

The fast changing requirements for a system that is not yet very digitalized and agile.

The German energy market is unwieldy and complex. Attempts are being made to digitize it and make it faster – also as part of the energy transition.

For example in the market communication, there is the federal network agency (Bundesnetzagentur), which sets the standards and from this EDI@Energy a working group of the BDEW (Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft), a larger association, develops a set of rules: This is issued as a PDF or a Word document. It can be printed out very well, but cannot be read directly into a computer. And this set of rules changes regularly.

Often every company tries to solve the exact same problems. And so the same tasks are repeated over and over in each company. This is why we try to further the implementation of open source solutions. In order to reach this goal, we work with the association BO4E, which is developing an open source communication standard to reduce a lot of interface problems that can cost unnecessary time and energy. Also so that every small municipal utility and every individual player doesn’t have to build their own individual solutions. It can also happen that smaller players don’t even come into play because the existing software solutions – often SAP as a main player in the market – can be too extensive and thus expensive.

Do you have any Future Plans?

A large part of my work is to further advance the open source standard and find leaner and faster solutions to the challenges in the energy market.

Whom to Contact?

Are you feeling inspired by this exciting idea and eager to explore more? Reach out to Annika for a delightful discussion, or simply visit the Hochfrequenz LinkedIn Page to learn more about their work.