The data journey: From smart meter to your system

Around 97% of all electricity connections in Austria now have a smart meter. These devices measure consumption in 15-minute intervals — 96 data points per day per meter. But how does that data get from the physical meter to a system you can actually use?

This article traces the complete journey, station by station. Each station is a distinct technical challenge. Together, they explain why automated access to smart meter data in Austria is far from trivial.

Station 1: The smart meter measures

It starts with the meter itself. A smart meter records energy consumption in 15-minute intervals. Since the ElWG update (December 2025), quarter-hourly data transmission is the default in Austria.

Two directions are measured:

• Consumption — electricity drawn from the grid (in kWh)
• Feed-in — electricity fed back into the grid, for example from a photovoltaic system

Data quality varies: measured values are the most reliable. When communication between the meter and the grid operator is temporarily interrupted, estimated values are delivered, and replaced with actual measurements within 60 days.

Important: as a business, you don't read this data directly from the meter. The data is transmitted from the meter to the responsible grid operator (Netzbetreiber), via powerline communication (PLC) or mobile networks.

Station 2: The grid operator collects

Austria has around 120 distribution grid operators , from large companies like Wiener Netze or Netz Niederösterreich to small municipal utilities. Each grid operator is responsible for a specific geographic area and collects data from all smart meters in their territory.

Every electricity meter is uniquely identified by its metering point number (Zählpunktnummer). This 33-character identifier begins with an 8-character prefix that identifies the responsible grid operator. This allows automatic routing of data requests to the correct operator.

Grid operators store the measurement data and make it available through Austria's regulated data exchange infrastructure. This access is not a commercial offering; it's a regulated process handled through a shared infrastructure.

Station 3: The EDA network transports

EDA stands for Energiewirtschaftlicher Datenaustausch (Energy Data Exchange) and is Austria's regulated infrastructure for exchanging energy data between market participants. We explain the EDA network in detail in a dedicated article.

What the EDA network is not: an API you can simply call. It is a decentralized messaging system. Participants exchange encrypted XML messages following an industry-specific standard (ebutilities). There is no central database; each participant operates their own infrastructure.

There are three ways to connect to the EDA network:

• EDA Portal — a web interface for manual queries, no own software needed. Functional but limited and not automatable.
• Email connection — for market participants with their own software, suitable for up to around 200 metering points.
• Dedicated communication endpoint — for more than 200 metering points: specialized communication software installed and operated locally on your own infrastructure. This endpoint consists of two software components and requires ongoing maintenance.

For businesses that need to process smart meter data programmatically, the first option is too limited. The other two require either custom software or dedicated infrastructure — plus registration as a market participant with your own participant address.

Station 4: The consent process

Before any data can flow, the meter holder must give explicit consent. This process is regulated by law and GDPR-compliant.

The process:

1. An authorized service provider submits a data access request for a specific metering point via the EDA network.
2. The responsible grid operator validates the request.
3. The meter holder must confirm the consent on their grid operator's web portal. This step cannot be automated; it requires a deliberate decision by the meter holder.
4. Once confirmed, data delivery begins.

The exact technical flow is documented in the official ebutilities process diagram.

Consent is valid for a defined period of up to three years and can be revoked at any time by the meter holder. The process typically takes 1 to 5 business days from request to data flow, depending on the grid operator.

Station 5: Processing

Once consent is active, data is delivered on a T+1 basis: yesterday's consumption values are available the following day.

The raw data arrives as XML messages, from each of the approximately 120 grid operators individually. Each operator has its own delivery schedules and quirks. The data must be:

• Parsed — XML messages converted into a usable format
• Validated — consistency checks, duplicate handling
• Transformed — the industry-specific XML format converted into usable formats like JSON or CSV
• Quality-monitored — estimated data detected and automatically replaced with measured values when they arrive (within 60 days)

Data volumes scale quickly: at 96 readings per meter per day, 1,000 meters produce around 96,000 records daily. Storage must handle time-series data efficiently: compression, retention policies, and fast queries.

Station 6: Delivery to your system

The final station is the actual goal: getting the data where it's needed. Depending on the use case, different delivery methods apply:

• REST API — for software integration and on-demand queries
• Webhooks — automatic notifications when new data arrives
• CSV via email — for teams that analyze data in spreadsheets

MQTT (for IoT applications) is already available. SFTP (for ERP integration) is planned as a further option.

Each delivery channel brings its own challenges: error handling, retry logic, format conversion, delivery monitoring. When a webhook fails, data must not be lost. When a CSV delivery is missed, it needs to be detected and retried.

Why this journey is so complex

Count the technical components and you get a substantial list:

• Meter communication (handled by the grid operator)
• Registration as an EDA market participant
• Dedicated communication endpoint with specialized, licensed software
• Consent management for each individual metering point
• Parsing and transforming XML messages into usable formats
• Data quality monitoring and automatic replacement of estimated values
• Efficient time-series storage
• Multiple delivery channels, each with their own error handling
• Biannual protocol updates from the EDA network that must be implemented

Each component requires specialized knowledge, ongoing maintenance, and monitoring. Building your own EDA integration typically takes several months, and then the ongoing maintenance begins.

For businesses whose core product is not EDA infrastructure, this effort quickly outweighs the benefit. This is exactly why managed services like energiedaten.at exist, abstracting this entire complexity and delivering data through simple, modern interfaces.

Summary

The journey from smart meter to your system spans six stations: measurement, collection by the grid operator, transport via the EDA network, consent from the meter holder, processing, and finally delivery to your systems.

The data exists: around 97% of all electricity connections in Austria have a smart meter. The challenge is not availability but reliable, automated access. If you don't want to build this path yourself, a managed service can handle the entire infrastructure for you.

Read our article on automation to learn when manual data collection reaches its limits.