Helmes Developed Application for Energy Agency that Influences Global Climate Policy

One of Estonia’s largest software firms Helmes developed an energy data management and sales platform for the International Energy Agency to be used both in shaping the world’s oil prices and in climate negotiations.

According to the Helmes project manager Martin Leet, the application brings together statistics about energy carriers across the world, which can then be used by major oil producing countries and organisations for the formation of both policies and prices. “The new application is more precise and faster than the existing solution and allows more effective energy policy development. For example, the data collected by our system is used for shaping global climate agreements,” Leet explained.

“In addition to governments, the application is used by the private sector and energy companies. The data serves as a basis for market analyses, which have an impact on prices of energy carriers, anything from solar energy to coal. It is also possible to assess the CO2 emissions by different energy sectors based on the data,” said Leet.

“We are currently working on yet another part of the system, which will make it easier for the various organisations to get access to the energy data. The Energy Agency is earning quite a lot from selling the data. If the Energy Agency increases its turnover by 10% from selling the data and thus improving the environment, they will have earned many times more than they spent on the application we developed for them,” Leet added.

Helmes won the international tender of the Energy Agency and has a team of seven working with the project.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a Paris-based intergovernmental organization engaged in energy matters. It is an autonomous organisation established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the global oil crisis.  The IEA was initially dedicated to responding to disruptions in the supply of oil, as well as serving as an information source on oil and fuel supplies and analysing the situation in the energy market. The Agency's mandate has broadened to focus also on energy security, energy efficiency and the environment, as well as cooperation in energy-related innovation and technology. Estonia joined the IEA in 2014.