In the Nordic energy landscape undergoing decisive transformation, Mattias Lindberg leads as Industry Domain Lead for Energy & Utilities at twoday. His role revolves around helping energy players in the Nordic countries to modernize their digital ecosystems.
Mattias has two main responsibilities. First, he is responsible for making sure twoday's expertise in data & AI, software development, and cloud & security meets market needs. Second, he works to ensure that the company collaborates closely with energy and utility companies to solve complex operational and strategic challenges in a cost-effective and future-proof manner.
Mattias shares his insights as Industry Domain Lead for Energy & Utilities at twoday in this interview
Could you introduce yourself and explain your role as Industry Domain Lead for Energy & Utilities?
Mattias Lindberg: I’m Mattias Lindberg, Industry Domain Lead for Energy & Utilities at twoday. My work is all about helping Nordic energy players modernize their digital ecosystems.
I focus on two main responsibilities. First, making sure our expertise in data & AI, software engineering, and cloud & security aligns with what the market genuinely needs. Second, ensuring we as a company collaborate closely with energy and utility firms to solve complex operational and strategic challenges in a cost-effective, future-proof way.
In one sentence, how would you describe the transformation happening in the Nordic energy sector right now?
Mattias: The Nordic energy sector is pivoting from a legacy model to a data-driven, sustainable future, where digitalization and clean electrification go hand in hand to meet ambitious net-zero targets. In practical terms, our once-stable, centralized power system is evolving into a far more complex landscape of distributed renewable generation, electric vehicles, battery storage, and flexible demand – all coordinated through data and technology.
What’s driving this urgent need to become “future-ready”?
Mattias: Several forces are at play. First, climate commitments: Nordic countries are committed to carbon neutrality by 2050 (some even earlier), accelerating the shift to renewables and electrification. We’re seeing massive investments in wind power, solar, and electrified solutions for transport and industry. As a result, electricity demand across the Nordics could double within the next 20–30 years – such growth is unprecedented, and you can’t manage it with outdated systems.
Second, consumer and market expectations have changed. Customers – whether large industrials or everyday households – expect reliable, green, and smart energy services. They’re also becoming producers (think rooftop solar owners or EV owners feeding power back to the grid), which adds a whole new dynamic. Utilities must be agile to integrate these “prosumers” and new market models.
Finally, technology itself is a driver. The cost of IoT sensors, cloud computing, and AI analytics has come down while capabilities have gone up. This creates opportunities to run the grid far more efficiently. But to leverage that, companies need to modernize their IT architecture. In short, the push to be future-ready comes from both opportunity (new revenue streams, better efficiency) and threat (climate urgency, disruptive competition) in today’s landscape.
Legacy systems are a common concern. How exactly do they hold energy companies back?
Mattias: I like to put it this way: many utilities are trying to drive a Formula 1 race with a decades-old car. Legacy IT systems – for billing, grid control, asset management, you name it – were not designed for the real-time, data-intensive needs of a modern smart grid. For example, in a legacy setup, integrating a new data source (say EV charging data or weather forecasts) might be painfully slow or even impossible. Processes tend to be manual or siloed. It’s still not unusual for field technicians to lack mobile access to job information, meaning updates from the field get delayed.
On the flip side, I’ve seen the huge benefits when organizations modernize. Fingrid, for instance, replaced a patchwork of old stakeholder databases with a unified platform that we helped implement, allowing information to flow transparently and customer interactions to become far more efficient. Integrating new data or processes in that modern system is much faster now – a stark contrast to the sluggishness of their former legacy environment. In essence, legacy systems can be innovation roadblocks, whereas modern platforms open the throttle for agility and scalability.
Where are energy companies focusing their digitalization efforts?
Let’s break it down – from customer solutions to grid operations and beyond.
Mattias: We see several key domains where digitalization is making an impact:
Data Platforms & Governance: At the core of many successful digital strategies is an investment in robust data platforms—central hubs that consolidate information from across the utility’s operations (e.g. grid, billing, customer usage) into a single source of truth. By harmonizing data models, enforcing governance rules, and enabling secure, scalable analytics environments, utilities ensure their teams can access accurate, real-time insights. This underpins everything from predictive maintenance algorithms to consumer-facing apps. We’ve found that utilities that prioritize data consolidation and proper governance not only accelerate decision-making but also reduce costly duplication of efforts across siloed business units. In short, a well-structured data platform is often the difference between a utility that’s truly “data-driven” and one that’s merely dabbling in digital.
Customer-Facing Digital Solutions: On the retail side, energy companies are using digital tools to engage customers and even influence their behavior. Think mobile apps that show homeowners their hourly energy usage and send incentives to shift consumption when renewable supply is high. There’s also integration with smart home devices – if a utility can interface with a customer’s smart thermostat or EV charger (with permission, of course), they can adjust loads remotely to help balance the system. This kind of demand response, enabled by data connectivity, turns consumers into active participants in grid stability.
For example, one Norwegian energy provider, Wattn, launched a twoday-developed mobile app and web portal that show customers real-time consumption data, costs, and even integrate electric vehicle charging control. By nudging users with timely data and alerts (like price spikes or renewable surpluses), companies can empower customers to shift usage to off-peak times – effectively helping to balance the grid while customers save on bills. It’s a win-win: customers get more value, and the system gains flexibility.
Market and Ecosystem Platforms: We shouldn’t forget digitalization beyond the individual company. Nordic countries are actually pioneering data hubs – centralized platforms where all energy consumption data, switching info, etc., is stored to make market processes more efficient and transparent. Denmark and Finland, for example, have launched national energy data hubs to standardize data access for all market players. When everyone has access to reliable data, it lowers barriers for new services (think innovative retailers or energy management apps) and improves competition.
We’ve seen how open data can unleash innovation: for instance, the Swedish Energy Agency worked with us to transform Sweden’s annual fuel consumption report from a static PDF into an interactive Power BI dashboard. Suddenly, policymakers, companies, and the public could filter and visualize fuel data in real time, gaining deeper insights. That kind of accessibility and engagement with data sparks new ideas and services. Similarly, giving market actors easy access to unified data via these hubs can catalyze third-party apps and “energy-tech” startups that offer consumers value-add services. Additionally, there are blockchain and peer-to-peer energy trading pilots emerging – digital tech enabling new market models (like neighbors trading solar power) that simply didn’t exist in the legacy setup.
Each of these digital initiatives reinforces the others. The big picture is an intelligent, automated grid that interacts seamlessly with engaged consumers and distributed resources. But I want to stress: there’s no magic one-and-done solution. Digital transformation has to be done in phases and paired with process changes and workforce training. Technology is a powerful enabler, but it’s most effective when guided by a clear strategy and strong organizational buy-in.