The British government is contracting for energy trading and risk management (ETRM) software, with up to £1.3 million available for it.
The Crown Commercial Service will use the software to manage over £1.5 billion in annual energy spend for 1,200 public sector customers.
A public contract notice comes as an existing contract with Energy One UK for use of its cloud-hosted enTrader ETRM draws to a close.
“CCS is seeking to replace its current ETRM by sourcing a replacement, cloud based system. This is an off-the-shelf ready to deploy software procurement, rather than a software development project” it said today.
The ETRM is used to record trade and demand forecasts, calculate open positions and valuations based on market prices, and serves as a ‘single source of truth’ for portfolio reporting and information, CCS said.
The energy trading landscape continues to be disrupted by increasingly fragmented generation, a proliferation of battery storage options and a rise in algorithmic trading, with demands on ETRM systems intensifying.
(As one specialist, Brady Technologies noted earlier this year, “Modern ETRM systems cater for traders [with] real-time trade processing straight from the exchanges… displaying comprehensive views of their positions, hedges, and even providing a live percentage-hedged view of their assets [and also serve risk managers…] who seek live, intraday information to ensure that traders aren’t surpassing their trading limits within the span of the trading day, and then unwinding positions later on in the day…”)
A little known fact: CCS is one of the largest energy buyers in the UK and the biggest buyer outside the energy sector itself; annually purchasing 7% of the entire Industrial and Commercial market, it notes.
The contract will be for an initial two years, with an option to extend for three periods of 12 months. CCS will be holding a bidder session on 18/11/2024 with more detail. Expressions of interest close December 10.
HMG has specialist risk-managed energy procurement services in place with TotalEnergies for gas and EDF for electricity, public documents show.
Those span the supply of ~£43 billion of electricity to central government and wider public sector customers and ~£8 billion in gas through 2027.
