.png){kind=logo}
Dec 2025
As electrification accelerates, the real bottleneck in the energy system is no longer technology but the lack of coordinated, usable data across markets and grid layers. Phlecks is tackling this hidden challenge by building the data foundations needed to unlock flexible energy markets, faster innovation, and smarter use of existing infrastructure.
.jpg)
As Europe electrifies everything, from cars and heat pumps to entire industries, the pressure on energy systems grows exponentially. But behind the national power system challenges lies something more fundamental: a massive data coordination problem to make one integrated flexibility market. For Trygve Skjøtskift, CEO and founder of Phlecks, the revelation came not from a bold idea but from a blunt realisation.
“We discovered that what we spent most of our time on wasn’t solving technical problems. It was coordinating the data between the market participants needed to ease the pressure on different levels in the power system. And that’s not a solved challenge, not even close,” he says.
This quest became the foundation of a company dedicated to making critical energy and utility data accessible, standardised, and ready for developing demand-side flexibility solutions at speed.
Skjøtskift describes the true scale of this coordination issue. Ministries and authorities would reasonably ask: Do we need more pilots to understand how to retrieve and use the data? The honest answer was:
“No, we do not need more pilots. We need to coordinate the data between the operational layers in the power system, from the consumers, up to the local grid operators and further up to the national power system operators, to create one integrated, robust and flexible market with more liquidity.”
“We don’t know the full impact on the energy system when electrifying everything. But we can be much better prepared to solve it if the energy data is coordinated between the layers in an integrated flexibility market. That’s what this is all about,” he explains.
Phlecks saw firsthand that the real innovation often came not from large utilities or public bodies, but from startups.
“It is no longer energy companies who develop the digital solutions to fix problems when we electrify everything, it is entrepreneurs, small innovative companies who understand how to use data, IoT and AI in new ways and says: we fix this? Digital solutions don’t just solve problems. They create the foundation for new and faster businesses to solve problems in the energy industry,” Skjøtskift says.
He points to the pharmaceutical sector, where there has been much longer tradition of innovative and explorative collaboration between large pharma incumbents with third-party entrepreneurs, scientist and small start-up companies, to develop new data, methods, processes and drugs to solve some of the global societal health challenges. A similar opportunity now exists in the energy sector.
The shift to electric mobility illustrates the stakes. As EV adoption surged, utility companies and grid operators had to collaborate with startups to adjust quickly. If they had spent years building datasets before testing solutions, they would have fallen far behind.
“People kept buying electric cars. If the incumbents had spent two years building data and then two more building a solution that didn’t work, they’d never would have catched up,” Skjøtskift says.
New collaborative partnerships with agile digital start-ups allowed them to coordinate data and business models, test, learn, fail, and fix, quickly.
“Having data and agile collaboration gives us the ability to experiment immediately, not just plan,” he explains and continues: “We can see in real time whether a solution is working or not, and if unexpected effects emerge. They always do.”
This isn’t merely about operational efficiency and safety. It’s about one integrated market and competitiveness. Even the old traditional energy industry must break down silos.
“Yes, Denmark has its own energy system, but we’re depended of our neighbouring countries. If we want to remain high security of supply along with electrifying everything, we need one liquid flexibility market with standards and coordination beyond borders,” Skjøtskift notes and continues: “If we unleash more flexibility in the existing grid, we can postpone expensive grid capacity expansions, society wins, and consumers pay less.”
Beyond industry concerns, Skjøtskift sees enormous benefit for ordinary citizens.
Today, consumers can log in and view electricity data, down to the hour—and soon the quarter-hour. Many use it simply out of curiosity. “It’s a hobby for some people to look at their consumption,” he says with a laugh.
But the real value is what comes next.
“Imagine that someone calls a consumer and offers a better heating solution. The only way that conversation becomes meaningful and stacks value to the consumer, is if the flexibility from that heater is coordinated and traded in the local grid as well as on national level”
The same motivation for helping the energy system that fuels startup innovation and grid optimisation also empowers citizens to make better energy choices and receive better offers.
Phlecks’ mission is not simply to fix a technical issue. It is to break down the data and market barriers required for Europe’s green transition to succeed. Without shared, standardised, accessible data, the continent cannot scale EVs, heat pumps, flexible markets, energy efficiency, or grid optimisation at the speed required.
“Data is the precondition for entrepreneurship, innovation, and competitiveness. If we want to solve future problems, we need integrated market access to the data before the problems arrive,” Skjøtskift says.
In a transition defined by complexity, Phlecks is helping with something deceptively simple:
A way to understand and coordinate what is happening, everywhere, in real time.
And that may prove to be one of the most important competitive advantages Europe has to develop as it electrifies everything.
.png){kind=logo}
