Brady comments on utility trading

When it comes to trading utilities, much has changed over the years, but some of the technology remains the same.  As Chris Regan, Product Director, Energy Portfolio Brady Technologies (www.bradytechnologies.com) explains, when it comes to technology to manage trading systems, there could be an alternative.

“If you lead a trading desk based at a long-established utility (as I did for many years), I can guarantee that apart from a legacy ETRM system, your business looks nothing like it used to 20 years ago.”

“Portfolios now have more renewables generation than fossil despite having zero of the former only a decade ago.  There is also likely to be in use at least one spreadsheet that was originally set up around 20 years ago that is ‘business critical’ –  and you will be still using a cumbersome legacy ETRM system.”

“Despite portfolios being decarbonized over the years, they continue to hold a significant proportion of the energy infrastructure.  There will still be conventional power stations whose output needs trading; a Commercial and Industrial (C&I) business line, with some customers holding floating price exposure all the way down to day-ahead, and possibly into cash-out; and a residential business that is either half-hourly or more likely non-half-hourly settled.”

“However, in addition to these, there will now be high volumes of renewable generation either owned of as an off-taker through a power purchase agreement (PPA); embedded flexible generation (batteries, gas peaks); significant volumes of demand side response contracts (DSR); flexible residential tariffs; Electric Vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure; and exposure to supplier of last resort requirements when the small supplier businesses fail!”

“So, it’s important that your IT system is agile to handle this newly de-carbonized market.  At Brady Technologies, we have developed PowerDesk, a SaaS solution.  The cost of market entry with PowerDesk is lower than building all the components separately, and an organization can re-invent a trading desk in a matter of weeks, not years.”

The full blog can be found at https://bradytechnologies.com/news/utility-not-so-big-6