NODES

An independent third-party flexibility market platform operated by NODES AS, a Norwegian company registered in Lysaker. NODES is one of two active flexibility market platforms in Sweden — the other being SWITCH, developed and owned by E.ON Energidistribution.

Overview

NODES is a commercial software-as-a-service platform that provides the market infrastructure (bid management, clearing, settlement support) for local flexibility markets. Unlike SWITCH, NODES is operated by a neutral third party rather than a DSO. This makes it the natural choice for DSOs that want to procure flexibility without operating their own platform — and for multi-DSO markets where a neutral operator is needed.

Swedish usage

NODES has been used by three Swedish markets:

In sthlmflex, NODES was used as the market tool (bid management, clearing, settlement, and baseline validation) while SWITCH‘s flex tool (DSO operator interface and grid state visualization) was reused from the CoordiNet platform. This demonstrated that the two platforms could be modularly combined. (Source - Ei Flexibility in Distribution Grids (2023))

NODES’s specific sthlmflex functions (Source - sthlmflex säsong 3 (2022-2023)):

• FSP registration and pseudonymization of resources for privacy
• Baseline calculation: NODES provided a standard 5-day rolling average method (same hour across the 5 preceding working days). FSPs could alternatively upload their own baseline or agree an alternative method with the buying DSO
• Delivery validation: compared measured values against baseline using metering data from the buying DSOs
• Settlement payments: monthly, approximately 25 working days after month-end for activation/ShortFlex Availability payments; end of March and end of May for LongFlex availability payments
• Contributed to sthlmflex’s CIM standardization work (alongside E.ON Energidistribution and DNV)

Product design

NODES-based markets in Sweden offer the same three product types as SWITCH markets, though product naming differs:

Mapping note (reconciled June 2026): ShortFlex is the energy-activation product — free hourly bids paid only on acceptance, no availability component → LFM-e (≈ SWITCH DO). LongFlex is the period availability product (availability + activation) → LFM-p (≈ SWITCH ST). An earlier reading of the onboarding source mis-mapped ShortFlex to LFM-h (availability); the onboarding document itself (Step 5) and Göteborg Energi’s product page both confirm the energy-only structure. (Source - Effekthandel Väst Produkter och MaxUsage (NODES, 2024), Source - Effekthandel Väst Onboarding Info (2025-26))

ShortFlex (continuous hourly energy-activation market):

• Minimum bid: 0.05 MW (lower than SWITCH’s 0.1 MWh/h)
• Contract length: one hour; market opens 6 days before delivery, closes H-2
• Lead time for first order: 6 days (process requirement for new FSPs; ongoing orders within season have no additional lead time)
• Validation threshold: 75% (must deliver at least 75% of ordered volume)
• Payment: activation only — paid on delivery; no availability fee

LongFlex: seasonal availability; bids compete on availability price (capacity fee) — meaning the provider with the lowest asking availability price wins the reservation contract. This differs from SWITCH’s seasonal availability, where bids are ranked on activation price. During activation, all contracted and free bids compete on activation price.

MaxUsage™ (Maxanvändning): a NODES-trademarked cap-based product, marketed as a “virtual fuse contract.” The FSP and DSO jointly set a ceiling on consumption during defined peak hours; the FSP is paid for staying below it, with minimal administration. NODES developed it with its DSO partners and FSPs explicitly to widen participation, above all for EV charging (e.g., capping workplace charging in the morning peak). No per-event baseline calculation; instead the value is benchmarked against a historical-consumption reference (e.g., Renova 75 kW cap vs ~300 kW historical at Effekthandel Väst). It worked well at Effekthandel Väst — judged successful in 2023/24 and scaled to the dominant activation product by volume from Dec 2024 — but was discontinued at Kinnekulle Energi because the historical reference drifts as efficiency/behaviour change, and because time-differentiated tariffs deliver the same signal market-wide. (Source - Effekthandel Väst Produkter och MaxUsage (NODES, 2024), Source - Sweco Kartläggning av lokala flexibilitetsmarknader (Ei, 2025))

The 0.05 MW minimum bid is lower than SWITCH’s 0.1 MWh/h minimum, potentially making NODES-based markets more accessible to smaller resources — particularly household-scale aggregated portfolios.

Congestion area linking

NODES models the grid as congestion areas, each corresponding to an order book. Areas can be linked vertically — sell orders in a local DSO area become visible to buyers at higher levels (regional DSO, TSO), and buy orders from higher SOs flow down to linked local areas. This means a single NODES deployment can serve a stack of DSO and TSO buyers from one shared resource pool, without requiring each SO to run a separate procurement process.

The DSO defines which congestion areas exist and how they are linked, preserving DSO control over what capacity is exposed to adjacent operators. The mechanism is the platform-layer foundation for both the cascade model (forwarding uncleared local bids upward) and potential common market coordination. (Source - NODES FPM Presentation (2026))

MCP traffic light — TSO-DSO coordination

NODES implements TSO-DSO coordination through a Market Communication Platform (MCP), which routes trade approval requests between the flexibility market tool and affected system operators before activation. The 6-step process:

1. DSO/TSO submits a buy order based on available market bids
2. Flexibility Market Tool: order enters pending approval state
3. FMT/MCP delivers a trade approval request to the counterpart SO
4. SO assesses grid impact of the proposed trade
5. Traffic light response:
   • Green — no grid impact; trade approved
   • Yellow — impact possible; trade accepted but conversation initiated; post-acceptance withdrawal is possible under strict rules (rarely invoked)
   • Red — critical negative impact; trade rejected
6. If approved: activation proceeds. If not: negotiation phase

The MCP also supports pre-configured node limits — DSOs and TSOs can buy freely up to a specified limit; above the limit the traffic light flow triggers automatically.

This operationalizes the Network Code on Demand Response‘s temporary limits concept in real time. The Yellow state — an accepted trade that may still be unwound — is a notable design choice: it avoids hard refusal while preserving the ability to abort if grid conditions change after initial assessment. (Source - NODES FPM Presentation (2026))

Role in the Swedish flexibility landscape

The existence of two competing platforms (NODES and SWITCH) has driven product convergence — both platforms have gravitated toward the same three product families through independent iterations. This creates a de facto Swedish market standard even without formal harmonization.

However, NODES and SWITCH are not fully interoperable. An FSP wishing to bid on both E.ON markets (SWITCH) and Effekthandel Väst (NODES) must prequalify separately for each market. Standardization of prequalification processes and APIs — recommended by Sweco (Rec 8) — would partially address this. (Source - Sweco Kartläggning av lokala flexibilitetsmarknader (Ei, 2025))

Geographic reach

NODES AS is a Norwegian company (registered in Lysaker). As of 2025, the platform operates active markets in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Belgium, and Canada — making it the only flexibility market platform in the comparison set with deployments across multiple continents. (Source - Flex Value Chain Rodrigues et al (2025))

In addition to the Swedish deployments (sthlmflex, JämtFlex, Effekthandel Väst), NODES therefore has operational experience in a broader Nordic and European context, as well as North America. NODES supports both DSO and TSO as flexibility requesting parties.

Canada/Ontario — PowerShare: Essex Powerlines (a local DSO in Ontario) operates a NODES-based local flexibility market with simulated coordination with the IESO (Independent Electricity System Operator), funded through the IESO Grid Innovation Fund. The PowerShare design uses sequential T-D coordination: Essex Powerlines informs IESO of qualified orders D-7; at D-1, IESO Capacity LongFlex orders are transferred as RTEM-qualified capacity and made visible to the simulated IESO (Essex Powerlines orders cannot be activated by IESO during this window); both SOs enter a mandatory activation window from −2h. Two LongFlex tiers coexist: IESO Capacity LongFlex (min 0.1 MW, RTEM criteria) and ordinary LongFlex (min 1 kW, pay-as-bid by Essex Powerlines). PowerShare is the clearest NODES example of a local market explicitly designed for joint DSO+TSO activation. (Source - NODES FPM Presentation (2026))

Norway — Euroflex: NODES operates Euroflex, Norway’s local flexibility market and the commercial successor to the NorFlex demonstration project (~2020–2023; Agder Energi, Glitre Energi, NODES, Statnett — Enova-funded; ~1,394 MWh traded, 4,000+ assets, and the first DSO + Statnett-mFRR integration — see Source - NorFlex Project (NODES, 2019-2023)). Euroflex ran its first unified trading season in winter 2024/25. As of V2025/26 it has 8 nettselskap (DSOs) and ~20 active flexibility providers, with December 2025 traded volume roughly 7× December 2024 and contracts lengthening from 1–2 weeks to 1–3 months — a clear maturity signal. Euroflex uses the same LongFlex/ShortFlex/MaxUsage product family as Effekthandel Väst, plus a new overlay product, Armering (“arming”): laid on top of an existing contract, it lets a resource hold availability in both the local market and Statnett’s markets simultaneously without double-activation risk (the DSO notifies ~2 days ahead and the contract is “armed” so capacity is withheld from Statnett that day — paying availability in both markets ~9 days out of 10). Glitre Nett applies a traffic-light model (trafikklysmodellen) to prioritise constrained areas but reports a shortage of available flexibility. The NODES market dashboard shows reserved (LongFlex) volume reaching ~11,500 MWh in 2026 across named DSO markets (Fagne, Glitre Nett Sør/Øst, Lnett, Linja, Tensio, Elvia, BKK), with activated volume (~1,900 MWh) now dominated by MaxUsage — mirroring the Effekthandel Väst pattern. Euroflex means Sweden is no longer the only Nordic country with an operating local flex market. (Source - Euroflex Norwegian LFM (NODES, 2026))

The Norwegian flexibility market ecosystem, while distinct from Sweden’s, has developed in parallel. Sweco notes that Norway is working on a centralized flexibility register (hub-connected) rather than requiring each DSO to build its own FIS — an approach recommended for Sweden to consider in the context of the Network Code on Demand Response‘s Flexibility Information System requirement.

Related pages

• SWITCH — the competing platform, developed by E.ON
• Effekthandel Väst — the active Swedish market using NODES
• Flexibility Market — Swedish market landscape
• CoordiNet — NODES was used by sthlmflex, which grew from CoordiNet’s ecosystem
• Network Code on Demand Response — the Flexibility Information System requirement

Data gaps

• NODES AS ownership structure and commercial model
• API and data standard specifications used by NODES for FSP and SO integration (MCP architecture is known; protocol details are not)
• Specific Finnish and Belgian markets where NODES is deployed
• Whether Essex Powerlines PowerShare has progressed from simulated IESO to live IESO activation
• NODES congestion area linking in Swedish deployments — which markets use it and how DSOs configure area hierarchies