UK Government and Trasys-Unisystems Build New Emissions Trading System, Meeting Strict Deadline on AWS

The UK government Department for Business Energy and Industrial Energy (BEIS) launched the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) in January 2021. The scheme employs a cap-and-trade approach that works to reduce greenhouse gases emitted by aviation and industrial installations operators. BEIS conducted an open and fair procurement process to contract a partner to deliver the technical solution for the scheme. The contract was awarded to a consortium of companies, Trasys-Unisystems (TU), comprising AWS Partner NRB’s subsidiary Trasys International and UniSystems, to deliver a cloud-based system that would adhere to strict UK government cloud and digital cyber security policies and standards.

Energy and climate targets are a key area of responsibility for the UK government’s Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). One of its functions, alongside other UK governmental administrations in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, is to implement an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for carbon emitters in aviation and large industries—for approximately 1,500 operators—using a cap-and-trade method. Operators must submit sufficient ETS allowances to match their emissions each year. A free annual emissions allowance is given to some operators—but operators can procure additional allowances through trading on a secondary market or from government auctions. 

In implementing the ETS, the UK government aims to encourage businesses to adopt green technologies and reduce overall emissions. BEIS had previously been part of the European Union’s (EU) ETS, but with the UK’s departure from the EU, it needed to develop its own scheme for UK-based businesses. The new system needed to be built from scratch and adhere to the UK government’s cloud-first policy, which requires that government bodies consider cloud solutions first before looking at alternatives. 

With an 18-month delivery timeframe for the project and an immovable deadline, BEIS needed to begin development of a new platform to ensure the project would be delivered on time. To help it develop its new cloud-based web application, it put out a competitive tender, choosing a consortium of two companies called Trasys-Unisystems (TU)—consisting of Trasys International, a subsidiary of AWS Partner Network Research Belgium (NRB), as the leading partner, and UniSystems, as a member partner. TU was responsible for building the new web application and ensuring it complied with UK government digital and security standards.

TU first helped BEIS assess several cloud providers for suitability and recommended Amazon Web Services (AWS) because it provided the best fit for the project. “Every UK government service is highly visible, so slow performance and security issues cannot be tolerated,” says Giles Andrewes, the ETS delivery manager at BEIS. AWS was chosen as the cloud provider for this service.

With TU based in Athens, it was important for the partner to find effective ways to collaborate despite COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. To do this, and to meet project deadlines, TU hosted virtual workshops for both teams to assess all risks and plan the project. An initial working platform for testing was completed within 6 months, using the remaining 12 months to refine and launch the new system. “We were initially concerned about not being able to meet face to face,” says Andrewes. “TU ensured from the start that we could work easily as one team.”

While the new AWS system was being set up, TU worked to ensure that it adhered to the strict National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) cyber security standards placed by the UK government. This was essential because the system would be potentially handling up to £7 billion in emissions allowance trading value. TU also worked to make the new system achieve more than 90 percent compliance with Level 3 of the OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) Application Security Verification Standard (ASVS)—a high-security standard used by organizations worldwide.

With the support of TU, the new system met the project deadline, going live on January 1, 2021. With the system built on AWS, BEIS now has a flexible web application that can handle more than 10 input transactions per second and offers over 99 percent availability. The system can also scale automatically if multiple users need to record data at the same time. “Our users have noticed that the new AWS cloud-based system offers impressive ease of use and performance,” says Andrewes.

For efficient cloud orchestration, the ETS system uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), which provides secure and resizable compute capacity for virtually any workload. This is linked to Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), which delivers object storage built to retrieve any amount of data from anywhere. To assist platform resilience, it uses multiple UK-based AWS Regions and Availability Zones. This also helps BEIS to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) data laws.

Using Terraform with AWS, BEIS can also benefit from using Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for the testing and production of new services. By eliminating the need for manual code production, BEIS needs 75 percent fewer people than before to manage its cloud platform.

To stay on top of system performance and alerts, including custom alerts built by TU, and security alerts—such as for distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks—BEIS uses two key AWS services. First, Amazon CloudWatch lets it observe and monitor resources and applications on AWS. Second, Amazon GuardDuty protects the department’s AWS account with intelligent threat detection. 

With a new scalable cloud-based system in place, BEIS is looking to work with TU and AWS to add a new system to issue permits, monitor, report, and verify carbon emissions. This suite of systems is designed to help the UK government meet its 2050 net zero commitments. 

Working with TU, BEIS has been able to develop its ETS system and pass the stringent UK Government Digital Standards assessment. “TU brought a wealth of AWS experience in building our new system,” says Andrewes. “We were able to pass the UK government’s digital assessment with zero observations.”