What challenges do energy retailers face ... and how can REBO provide value?

From specific stand-alone products or services to complete back office operations, REBO offers a broad spectrum of products and services to the electric and natural gas retailer. REBO can match how much of the back office operation you wish to have in-house. We can also variablize your back office costs by offering per meter or per MWh/MCF pricing.

See if some of the following challenges have relevance to you, and whether our services might fit with your situation:

Retail Forecasting

Can you accurately model how your customer's load varies with temperature?

We can improve forecasting precision for many clients through the development of advanced equation sets that provide better simulation of the effects of temperature on electric and natural gas load.

Have you optimized your load forecasting system? What kinds of gains could you realize from improvements to load forecasting?

REBO has the experience and the resources to review your load forecasting system top-to-bottom and to optimize that system. We will look at all components of your load forecasting system and find further opportunities for improvement through systems and process improvements.

Risk Management

How accurate is the load model in your customer pricing system? Do you really know what it costs to serve a customer? Do you know how much profitability is at risk from load volatility?

Since your cost to serve a customer depends on the volume, shape and variability of their load, improving your knowledge of customer loads will result in pricing systems that improve your competitiveness and profitability through more accurate understanding of the true cost and risk to serve any particular customer or class of customers.

Are you paying for services from your energy suppliers that you don't need? Are you paying risk premiums for load volatility that could be reduced?

Many electric retailers pay for costly supply hedges and options that they wouldn't need if they understood their load better.

How exposed are you to load variability and wholesale pricing swings? Do you have a complete and accurate understanding of your portfolio risk?

Through improved understanding of your loads, your company will be able to uncover and mitigate excess exposure to load and price volatility risk.

Are your wholesale and retail contracts aligned? Are you assuming risk or leaving money on the table by selling a product that is not consistent with your supply?

REBO has helped to develop and reviewed many wholesale and retail contracts. We can help you determine if your contracts properly manage your risk, or, if they don't, to suggest changes that will.

What information do you need to collect from potential customers before offering them a price? Are your currently subject to power factor penalties, or could they be if they choose a non-utility supplier?

Some types of customers because of irregular operating schedules, or the equipment they use, pose greater imbalance risk to the retailer than other customers. Likewise, some utilities assess power factor penalties differently if they are serving the customer than if the customer is supplied by an electric retailer. REBO can help develop your customer information questionaire that will allow you better assess the cost of serving a customer. Use that information to select one of our load shapes and our retail pricing model, you can assess customer use patterns on your cost to serve and the customer's potential savings.

Cost Reductions

Could you reduce your supply costs through improved purchasing and hedging strategies?

REBO can review supply purchasing, hedging and portfolio management strategies and contracts, and develop specific measures to provide immediate yields. In some cases, restructuring of supply management strategies can generate dramatic impacts and portfolio profitability, and can significantly increase your firms competitiveness.

Could you reduce your supply scheduling imbalance expense? Could you benefit by tightening up your near term portfolio management efforts?

Having a more accurate understanding of your load can help you avoid making portfolio management decisions too loose – conservative “slop” that results in unnecessary cost, or too tight – over aggressive portfolio management that exposes you to significant risks. Also, we can help you avoid costly imbalance penalties, generator uplift charges, etc.

Back Office

Have you considered LMP pass through pricing, but been put off by the complexity of managing the data required?

LMP pass through requires converting all customer and wholesale data to hourly values, allocating that data to individual meters and summing the data to a customer's billing cycle. REBO can provide everything from system design and data specification to complete LMP billing services.

Do you want to add or upgrade a system? Are you short of time or resources to find and evaluate available systems?

REBO has guided companies through system selection: taking their wishes to establish selection criteria, locating and prescreening candidates, managing finalist presentations, and preparing and presenting management reports on selection results.

Does your IT staff have the resources and expertise to produce the product you want? Will you need to guide them through design and development? Can they produce the product when you need it?

REBO's strength is understanding the retail electric business and in developing systems to support retail electric business.