Finnish startup Truman Data has made its Energy Coop virtual power plant (VPP) platform available to its first customers in Finland, pitching it as a revenue-sharing alternative to long-term battery-as-a-service contracts for property owners and municipalities.
The company said the platform uses AI to predict how much flexibility each building and battery in a portfolio can offer, steers heating, ventilation, EV charging and battery loads within limits set by the customer, and packages that flexibility into trades linked to Nord Pool day-ahead and intraday market prices. It did not say whether those trades are executed on the exchange or modeled against market prices, or whether Truman Data trades directly or through a registered market participant.
Truman Data, which commercializes technology developed at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, does not sell or own battery hardware. It earns a share of what customers make and helps them arrange financing for battery systems. The company said many battery-as-a-service offers tie customers to five- to 10-year contracts at fixed prices.
“We don’t sell or own our customers’ BESS assets, so we can stand on the customer’s side of the table,” said CEO Björn Hammar. “We only earn the agreed share of what the customer earns, and if our customer doesn’t earn, we won’t either.”
Pilot claims
Truman Data said data recorded in a 70-building municipal pilot showed an 11.4% cut in annual electricity costs through optimization. Separately, it calculated that flexibility trading would generate revenue equal to a further 4.2% of the annual bill, a modeled figure rather than recorded revenue. The company did not name the municipality.
Truman Data’s own analysis projects that connecting three to seven small and mid-size battery systems to the platform alongside the buildings would raise total benefits by a further 10 percentage points, to more than 25%. The company offers property owners a calculation of what battery-equipped buildings would save and earn before they choose a battery supplier.
Finnish transmission system operator Fingrid said in August that data center projects with signed grid connection agreements total just under 5 GW, and electric boiler projects under construction or in operation exceed 3 GW. If all projects with signed agreements were built, Finland’s electricity consumption would rise by close to 40% from 2025 levels, which Fingrid said would take at least five years. Connection agreements have also been signed for more than 4 GW of storage.
Finland had about 250 MW of operational battery storage in mid-2025, with about 300 MW more expected to connect within two years. Larger projects are now under construction, including a 125 MW/300 MWh battery that Covenergo and Delta Capacity broke ground on in September.
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