How can REBO improve your wholesale-to-retail operations?

How well do you understand the retail loads you are following for your wholesale-to-retail customers?

Accurate assessment and forecasting of retail electric loads is often outside of the wholesaler's core competency, and this is why our services are valuable to energy companies selling bulk supplies to energy retailers. REBO understands retail load forecasting, and we have successfully worked with a number of bulk power suppliers to improve their ability to manage wholesale-to-retail electric loads. In particular, our temperature correction equation sets will significantly improve the accuracy of most load forecasting systems. What's more, we can provide top-to-bottom load forecasting system development and improvement services for those providers that lack these capabilities.

Are you reluctant to expand wholesale-to-retail sales because you are not comfortable that you understand the market well enough?

By utilizing our expertise and experience, you can build the capabilities to profitably and reliably expand your services in the wholesale-to-retail market.

How accurately are you pricing wholesale-to-retail accounts? How is this affecting your competitiveness and your ability to sell value-added services to retailers?

It is our experience that wholesalers generally tend to overprice the optionality or shaping premium associated with retail load. This overpricing hurts the competitiveness of the retailers you are working with, which in turn reduces the competitive advantage you might gain over other bulk wholesalers that do not provide value added services to the retail market. The problem may be corrected through a more precise understanding and modeling of ultimate end use customer loads.

Overpricing may also drive retailers to "self-manage" their loads – doing their own shaping and volatility risk management. This means that you have left value on the table, as retailers are doing work that you should be doing for them.

If you are providing credit support to your retailers, how well do you understand the retailer's profitability? How do you know the book you are supporting is profitable?

Wholesalers providing credit support to energy retailers may rely on the retailer's assessment his margin and risk profile, usually because the wholesaler does not possess adequate understanding of retail loads to make this assessment themselves. REBO can fill this gap by performing a thorough due diligence assessment of the retail books you are supporting through our extensive knowledge of retail loads and retail portfolio management.

Are there state or utility business rules that increase your risk? Could you be responsible for serving your retailer's customers if the retailer defaults?

Just as overpricing can reduce your competitive position, not accounting for specific state regulatory or utility business rules can increase your risk and put you in a position of providing products or services for which you have no capabilities. REBO can help you evaluate state and utility business rules and to value them in your pricing.

Are some of your retailers interested in LMP pass through pricing, but intimidated by the complexity involved? Are you interested in expanding your product offerings to retailers?

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 you with a complete LMP billing service.