53 terms Reviewed
Terms you meet when you commission software for energy, lending, AI, connected devices or accessible apps. Each entry says what the term means, what it changes in the software you are buying, and where we have built it.
Every entry is reviewed by a practitioner who builds these systems: Mateusz Widenka, Daria Gusieva, Paweł Zieliński, Maciej Sułek, Michał Dżaman, Łukasz Gajownik, Karol Oponowicz.
25 terms
Market, storage and device terms for teams that buy energy software, from demand response and day-ahead trading to the protocols that connect inverters and batteries.
15 terms
Lending and payments terms for teams that buy fintech software: what regulators require, what customers expect in the app, and what that means for the system.
5 terms
Terms you meet when you add AI to a product that has to work in production: where the model runs, what happens to the data, and how you know the output is good enough.
5 terms
Terms you meet when software has to run on devices you do not hold in your hand: updates over the air, fleet management and control of network traffic.
5 terms
Terms you meet when an app has to work for people who use screen readers, keyboards or simplified text: the standard, how to test against it, and what that means for the build.
3-D Secure (3DS) is the card schemes' protocol for authenticating the cardholder in an online card payment. The merchant's side sends transaction and device data to the card issuer, which approves the payment without friction or asks the cardholder for strong customer authentication.
Accessibility audit (WCAG audit)
An accessibility audit is a structured check of a website or app against a standard, usually WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 at level AA. It combines automated scans with manual testing by keyboard and screen reader, and ends with a report that lists each failed success criterion, where it fails and how to fix it.
Automatic frequency restoration reserve
aFRR (automatic frequency restoration reserve) is a frequency restoration reserve that the grid operator activates automatically, by sending setpoints from its frequency controller, to bring system frequency back to its nominal value. In Poland it must reach full activation within 5 minutes.
Android Open Source Project
AOSP (Android Open Source Project) is the open-source code base of the Android operating system, published by Google. Device makers can build their own Android variants from it. Google apps and services (GMS) are not part of AOSP and are licensed separately.
Annual percentage rate of charge
In EU consumer credit law, the APR (annual percentage rate of charge) is the total cost of credit to the consumer expressed as an annual percentage of the total amount of credit. One EU formula is used to calculate it, so offers can be compared.
Battery energy storage system
A battery energy storage system (BESS) stores electricity in rechargeable batteries and releases it to a site or the grid on command. It combines battery racks, a battery management system, power conversion equipment and control software.
Battery management system
A battery management system (BMS) is the electronics and software that monitor a battery's cells, including voltage, temperature and state of charge, balance them and disconnect the battery when it leaves safe limits. In buildings, BMS can also mean a building management system.
A capacity fee is the charge end users pay to fund a capacity market. In Poland most business users pay it per kWh drawn in peak hours on working days, scaled down when their peak-hour consumption is close to their off-peak consumption.
Card issuing is the payment service of giving a customer a payment card and processing the transactions made with it. Under PSD2 only a licensed provider can issue cards, so a lender can offer a card in its app through an issuing partner and attach its own credit limit.
Consumer Credit Directive 2
CCD2 is the common name of Directive (EU) 2023/2225 on credit agreements for consumers, which replaces Directive 2008/48/EC. Member States must apply the national rules implementing it from November 20, 2026.
A consent management platform (CMP) is software that asks users for consent, records each decision per purpose, and tells the app or website which tools may run. In the EU it implements the consent rules of the GDPR and of Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive.
Data anonymization is processing personal data so that no one can identify the person by any means reasonably likely to be used. Anonymous data falls outside the GDPR; pseudonymized data, which can be re-linked with separately kept information, remains personal data under the GDPR.
The day-ahead market is a daily auction in which electricity for each 15-minute period of the next day is bought and sold. In Europe orders close at 12:00 CET and one algorithm sets prices for all coupled bidding zones.
Debt collection is the process of recovering overdue payments from a borrower, from the first reminder after a missed due date through repayment plans and settlements to court and enforcement. The lender runs it itself or hands it to a collection agency or a debt buyer.
Deep packet inspection (DPI) is a method of network traffic analysis that reads packet contents, not only IP addresses and ports, to identify the protocol or application behind a flow, extract fields such as host names, and allow, block or log the traffic by policy.
Demand response is a change in electricity consumption by end users, away from their normal pattern, in reaction to prices or to a paid call from a grid operator or aggregator. It can be offered by one site or by many sites pooled through aggregation.
Device fingerprinting is the collection of technical attributes of a phone or browser to recognize the same device across sessions. Lending apps use it for fraud checks at login, registration and the loan application. In the EU it falls under the GDPR and Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive.
A digital twin is a software representation of a physical asset or process, kept in sync with it through live data, so operators can monitor it, simulate changes and sometimes control it without touching the real equipment.
A dynamic electricity tariff is a supply contract whose energy price follows the spot market, usually the day-ahead price for each hour or quarter-hour. EU law gives every customer with a smart meter the right to such a contract from at least one supplier.
Early repayment is a consumer's right to repay all or part of a credit before the agreed date. EU law gives a matching reduction in the total cost of credit and caps the lender's compensation at 1% or 0.5% of the amount repaid early.
Easy-to-read
Easy-to-read (ETR) is a way of writing information so that people with intellectual disabilities can understand it, with everyday words, short sentences and one idea per line, checked by readers from that group. Inclusion Europe publishes the European standard.
Energy management system
An energy management system (EMS) is software that reads the meters, inverters and batteries on a site and sends them setpoints, deciding when to charge, discharge, curtail or trade within grid, contract and safety limits.
An energy cooperative is a cooperative whose members produce, store and use renewable energy together. In Poland it is a legal form under the Renewable Energy Sources Act with its own settlement of members' energy; in EU law the closest concept is the renewable energy community.
Energy curtailment is a deliberate reduction of a generator's output, usually solar or wind, below what it could produce. A grid operator orders it to keep the system balanced or a line within limits, or it is set locally as an export limit at the grid connection.
Energy procurement is how a business buys the electricity and gas it consumes: choosing a contract model, fixing prices through tranches or supplier tenders, and checking the resulting cost, risk and invoices against a budget.
Energy trading and risk management
Energy trading and risk management (ETRM) is the category of software that records energy trades and manages the resulting positions, risk, profit and loss and settlement for companies that buy and sell power, gas or other energy commodities.
Focus management (keyboard and screen reader focus)
Focus management is how an app decides which element receives keyboard or screen reader focus when the screen changes: after navigation, when a dialog opens or closes, or when an error appears. Done right, the user always knows where they are and cannot reach controls that are hidden.
A guarantee of origin (GoO) is an electronic certificate, with a standard size of 1 MWh, that proves to a final customer that a given quantity of energy was produced from renewable sources. It is issued, transferred and canceled in a national registry and traded separately from the energy.
Know your customer
Know your customer (KYC) is the process in which a financial company identifies a customer and verifies their identity, usually at onboarding, as part of its anti-money laundering duties. eKYC is the remote, digital form of that process.
LLM evaluation is the systematic testing of a language model's outputs on a fixed set of inputs against agreed acceptance criteria, using automatic checks, model-based grading and human review. It decides whether a model, prompt or version is good enough to ship.
A loan extension, also called a rollover, moves the repayment date of a loan to a later date, usually for a fee. In Poland, the costs of an extension agreed within 120 days of payout count toward the statutory cap on the loan's non-interest costs.
A loan institution is a Polish non-bank lender that grants consumer credit. It must be a joint-stock company or a limited company with a supervisory board, hold PLN 1 million in share capital and be entered in the KNF register.
A loan origination system (LOS) is software that takes a loan from application to payout: it collects the application, verifies the applicant's data, supports the credit decision and issues the offer. After payout, a loan management system services the loan until it is repaid.
Mobile device management
Mobile device management (MDM) is software that lets an organization enroll, configure, monitor, lock and wipe phones, tablets and other devices from a central console, by sending policies to an agent or to the management interface of each device's operating system.
Modbus is an open request-response protocol for reading and writing 16-bit registers and single bits in field devices. Inverters, batteries and energy meters use it over serial lines (Modbus RTU) or Ethernet (Modbus TCP).
NIS2 Directive
NIS2 is the EU cybersecurity directive (EU) 2022/2555. It requires essential and important entities, including electricity suppliers, grid operators, producers, aggregators, storage and charge point operators, to manage cyber risk and send an early warning of significant incidents within 24 hours.
Open banking is regulated third-party access to a customer's payment account, with the customer's consent. In the EU it rests on PSD2, which defines account information services (AIS) and payment initiation services (PIS).
Over-the-air update
An OTA (over-the-air) update is a software or firmware update that a device downloads and installs over a network, with no cable or service visit. FOTA is the firmware case. The package must be signed, verified on the device and recoverable when the installation fails.
Peak shaving lowers the highest power a site draws from the grid, usually by discharging a battery or cutting flexible load during the intervals the network tariff measures, so the site avoids capacity overrun fees or qualifies for a lower network charge.
A PESEL restriction is a flag a Polish adult can set on their national identification number (PESEL) in a state register. Since June 1, 2024 a lender must check it before concluding a consumer credit agreement and before an amendment that increases the debt.
Power purchase agreement
A PPA (power purchase agreement) is a contract under which a buyer agrees to purchase electricity directly from a producer on market terms, usually for several years and often from a named wind or solar plant.
A repayment schedule (amortization table) lists the dates and amounts of a loan's installments, with each installment split into capital, interest and other costs. EU and Polish consumer credit law let the borrower ask for it free of charge at any time during a fixed-term agreement.
Supervisory control and data acquisition
Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) is a class of industrial control systems that collects real-time data from field devices and sensors, presents it to operators and sends control commands to equipment across a plant or network.
Scope 2 emissions are the indirect greenhouse gas emissions from generating the electricity, steam, heat or cooling a company buys and consumes. They are usually reported twice: by grid average (location-based) and by the contracts the company chose (market-based).
Screen reader testing (VoiceOver, TalkBack, NVDA)
Screen reader testing checks an app or website with VoiceOver, TalkBack, NVDA or another reader that blind and low-vision people use to hear the interface. A tester goes through every screen and checks what is announced, in what order, and whether every task can be finished.
A self-hosted LLM is a large language model whose weights run on infrastructure you control, your own servers or rented GPUs. Prompts and outputs never reach a model vendor.
Sideloading is installing an app from a source other than the device's official app store, for example an APK file from a website, an email or a cable. Android asks for permission for each source, and a company that manages the device can block it with a device policy.
A smart meter is an electricity meter that communicates both ways with the network operator's remote reading system, recording interval data such as 15-minute load profiles and accepting commands such as a power limit or disconnection.
State of charge (SoC) is the energy available in a battery, expressed as a percentage of its rated capacity. The battery management system estimates it, and energy software uses it to decide when a battery may charge, discharge or hold a reserve.
Thermal energy storage (TES) stores energy by heating or cooling a medium such as water, rock or molten salt, and releases it later as heat, cold or power. It lets a site buy electricity when it is cheap and deliver heat when it is needed.
Vehicle-to-grid
V2G (vehicle-to-grid) lets a plugged-in electric vehicle send electricity from its battery back to the grid, not only charge from it. An aggregator pools many vehicles and sells their flexibility on energy and balancing markets.
Virtual power plant
A virtual power plant (VPP) is a network of distributed energy resources, such as solar systems, batteries and flexible loads, coordinated by a central control system so that they can be operated and traded as one unit.
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.2
WCAG 2.2 is the W3C standard for accessible web content. It sets 86 testable success criteria at three levels, A, AA and AAA. Content that meets WCAG 2.2 also meets 2.1, the version that EU and Polish rules for websites and apps point to at level AA.
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