Powering ahead with an eye on the market

Apr 23 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

BOSSES at the largest coal-fired power plant in the country will look to stay one step ahead of their rivals in the energy market after working with a North East technology firm.

The Drax plant near Selby, North Yorkshire, has called in the help of Newcastle-based Rocket Solutions and signed up to use its market intelligence technology, Market Eye.

The system monitors the energy market and the complex patterns within it, enabling the business to make quick decisions and trade more effectively.

Drax provides enough power to meet 7% of the UK’s electricity needs and has an output capacity of 4,000 megawatts, making it nearly twice the size of the country’s second-largest coal-fired power station.

Market Eye collects and presents large volumes of live data in visual displays for coal, carbon, power, gas and oil – refreshing every few seconds to give the very latest market shifts.

This information can then be used to gain an insight into market patterns and news and important data can be quickly shared across the team for immediate action. New data feeds, reports and analytics can also be incorporated very quickly.

Justin Short, managing director at Rocket Solutions, said: “Business Intelligence is a really important support tool to have within a business, giving firms a greater insight into the market place and also looking at the effectiveness of internal operations.

“Using Microsoft SQL Server, SharePoint and PerformancePoint we have been able to create and develop a very successful business support tool.

“The work we have completed with Drax is a great example of how it can be used to influence a business through key market data and market shifts.”

Damien Speight, head trader at Drax, said: “Compared to the old system, which was manually intensive and slowed down our decision making, Market Eye has brought the commodity markets to our fingertips allowing us to access more information in a more manageable way and execute our trades with an eye on market conditions.”