Implementing Low-Cost Energy Management Solutions
Services
ECG provides a wide array of services to CEI:
Power Supply Planning
Power Supply Planning
ECG helps CEI ensure low-cost and reliable power supplies with a portfolio approach to power supply procurement. Diversification of suppliers, contract terms, generation resources, and fuel inputs are all key elements in meeting reliability goals, maintaining acceptable levels of risk, and keeping costs low.
Key Components:
- Power Marketing
- Portfolio Optimization
- Asset Acquisition and Management
- Purchased Power Contract Negotiation
- Power Entitlement Contract Negotiation
- Fuel Hedging and Cost Risk Management
- Budgeting
- Forecasting
- Expert Testimony
- Regulatory Restructuring
- Load Forecasting
- Renewable Energy and Distributed Generation
Retail Pricing and Rate Services
Retail Pricing and Rate Services
Today's utilities must be certain their approved rates are set at levels that recover costs and provide for continued growth. Rate structures continue to become more complex due to advances in technology and rigorous regulatory requirements. No crystal ball can forecast supply and demand, nor can it predict weather patterns.
Energy Consulting Group's team of energy professionals offers CEI a unique blend of rate-making experience encompassing wholesale rate studies, transmission tariff analysis, traditional retail cost of service studies, and the development of unbundled and marginal rate products. ECG guides CEI's members through this often-complex process. Utilizing our knowledge of industry cost structures and tariffs to modify current rate structures or formulate new structures for CEI's members to ensure their continued success.
Key Components:
- Cost of Service Studies
- Wholesale Rate Studies
- Load Forecasting
- Budget Forecasting
- Marginal Rate Development
- Unbundled Rate Studies
- Real-time Rate Development
- Demand Response Rate Development
Fuel Supply Planning and Development
Fuel Supply Planning and Development
Managing the uncertainty in fuel pricing and availability is critical to optimizing a generation fleet and minimizing delivered energy costs. ECG partners with CEI's members to identify, analyze and execute the most effective solutions for their businesses. Our staff is experienced in all facets of fuel supply planning, procurement, and risk management, and we assist CEI in optimizing opportunities and mitigating risk factors.
ECG offers the following services:
- Gas Procurement, Transportation and Storage
- Oil Product Procurement and Transportation
- Coal Transportation, Terminalling, and Storage
- Fuel Price and Availability Risk Analysis
Business Strategy and Financial Structuring
Business Strategy and Financial Structuring
The development of a sound business strategy requires coordinated efforts in strategic analysis, rate-making, engineering, and operations, in addition to finance. ECG Staff has direct experience providing strategy and finance consulting services to CEI's members. Our expertise, combined with our deep knowledge of the utility business, allows us to facilitate informed and accurate decisions in business strategy and financial structuring. Our experience includes:
- Competitive Alternatives Analysis
- Business and Asset Valuation
- Capital and Credit Requirement Determination
- Construction and Working Capital Budgeting
- Project and Business Risk Assessment
- Multi-Year Financial Pro Formas
- Support Preparation of Financing Documents
- Opportunity Cost Analysis
Generation and Transmission Restructuring
Generation and Transmission Restructuring
ECG's staff are pioneers in all facets of G and T restructuring - from formation to dissolution. They have extensive experience in power pools, control area regulation, and wholesale bulk power markets. They can provide you with the roadmap necessary for negotiating the uncertainties associated with G and T restructuring. Service offerings include:
- Capacity and Reserve Requirements Analysis
- Partial Requirements Cost Benefits Analysis
- Partial Requirements Restructuring
- Full Requirements Cost Benefits Analysis
- Control Area Services Evaluation and Pricing
- Unbundled Power and Transmission Services
- Wholesale Power Contract Restructuring
- Member Choice in Power Supply
- Load Forecast Management
- Market-Based
Business Process Services
Business Process Services
Is your business utilizing every available competitive advantage? Are you poised to capitalize on growth or coming change? What are your key organizational bottlenecks? ECG can help answer these questions.
ECG's Business Process Improvement services offer the members of CEI the opportunity to improve management oversight of current processes, improve efficiency, reduce costs, and, most importantly, improve customer satisfaction. Define a clear view of where you are...and a clear path to get where you want to be with ECG's Business Process Improvement services.
- Strategic Planning
- Operational Audits
- Business Process Mapping/Analysis
- Information Mapping
- Organizational Design
- Benchmarking Studies
- Change Management
- Conflict Management
Transmission and Distribution Services
Transmission and Distribution Services
Transmission Services
Regional and bulk transmission studies can be achieved with a minimum of fuss with ECG's staff and expertise. However, our services don't stop with a load flow study report, but continue through the multitude of details and negotiations needed to achieve your strategic purpose. No longer do transmission services solely include the need to send power from Point A to Point B. Instead, the entire market, supply, demand, and transmission situation must be considered to find the short- and long-range optimum for your interest.
Distribution Planning and Design
ECG's distribution planning and design team include highly qualified professionals who average more than 17 years of experience in the design, planning, and financial valuation of distribution assets. Each team member offers a unique skill set to contribute to the success of your project.
- Transmission and Distribution
- RTO Analysis and Implementation
- Interconnection Access/Constraints
- Congestion Analysis
- Valuation
- Distribution Planning and Design
- Engineering Design
- Efficiency Studies
Regulatory Analysis and Compliance
Regulatory Analysis and Compliance
Regulatory, Legislative, and Judicial actions at both the Federal and State level will continue to have increasingly dramatic effects on your business. NERC's new position as the nationwide Electric Reliability Organization, FERC's Order No. 890, recent Supreme Court rulings, and EPA mandates are part of the latest round of changes to be brought on by new laws, regulations, and legal precedent at the Federal level. All major utilities are actively involved in the regulatory and judicial process, at both the Federal and State level, when the outcome will impact their business. ECG can assist you in understanding how the resolution of pending issues could potentially impact your business, thereby enabling you to participate effectively in the process.
Post-enactment, cost-effective compliance is critical to your bottom line. Compliance with new rules is often open to interpretation and reinterpretation with the progression of time. ECG has experienced personnel to assist you in shaping outcomes as well developing and managing compliance procedures in the following areas:
- PURPA
- Energy Policy Act of 2005
- FERC Orders filings and appeals
- NERC and Regional EROs. Development of and compliance with new guidelines
- State Regulatory Policy, Formation, Analysis, Support, and Compliance
- Renewable Portfolio Standards
- Retail Choice Legislation Analysis, Strategy, Restructuring
- Litigation, Support in all Areas, and all Phases of action
- Regulatory Economics
- Strategic Planning
- Compliance Procedures
- Peer Alliance Formation and Support
Power Marketing and Resource Optimization
Power Marketing and Resource Optimization
ECG's team of seasoned market veterans provides a wide range of services to CEI to ensure that CEI's members' best interests are served. We'll help to monitor and guide our members on power supply choices to maximize the value of assets and lower overall power costs. ECG has experienced front-, mid-, and back-office consultants to help you manage and balance your energy portfolio, fulfill reporting and credit requirements, and reconcile and settle transactions.
ECG provides CEI and its members with the precision and expertise they need to keep up in today's energy industry.
Wholesale Energy Market Services
Wholesale Energy Market Services
Risk Management:
- Determine Risk Tolerances and Appropriate Market and Credit Risk Metrics and Limits
- Design Risk Oversight Organization, Supervisory Structure, and Reporting Responsibilities
- Implement Risk Management Policies and Procedures for Compliance with Risk Limits, System Operating and Pool Agreements, as well as ERO, Accounting, and other Oversight Entities' Regulations and Standards
- Develop Market-Based Energy Price, Capacity, Volatility Curves, and Models for Valuation as well as Market and Credit Risk Analysis of Load/Asset/Transaction Portfolios
- Develop and Implement Risk Management Reporting Systems for Load/Asset/Transaction Portfolios
Energy Dispatch:
- Develop and Implement Analytic Models for Optimal Market-Based Generation Scheduling and Dispatch
- Create a Portfolio of Optimal Generation and Wholesale Energy Transactions to Achieve the Least Cost Energy Procurement as well as Maximum Energy Sales Revenue
- Review PPA, Market Agent, Fuel Supply, and Transmission Agreements to Discern the Maximum Utility
- Design and Implement Asset and Contract Utilization Management Reporting Systems
Scheduling and Settlement:
- Create and Implement Energy Scheduling Procedures to Optimize Transmission and Transportation Asset Utilization for Maximum Power and Fuel Flow Efficiency and Reliability
- Implement a Billing Reporting System for Power and Fuel Transactions, including LD and Penalty Reporting
- Effectuate Management Reporting System for Timely Reporting and Analysis of Billed Costs and Revenue
Transaction Pricing and Analysis:
- Structured Transaction Pricing and Risk/Reward Analysis
- Design and Implement Pricing Models for Structured Transactions
- Technical Consultation and Training on Structured Product Pricing and Risk Management
System Requirements, Selection, and Implementation:
- Determine System Requirements for Energy Trading and Risk Management, Asset Optimization, Energy Settlement, Billing, and Financial Reporting
- Develop Detailed Business and Technical Specifications and Prepare RFQ and RFP
- Vendor Proposal Evaluation, Selection, and Implementation Management
Market Monitoring:
- Regulatory Review and Compliance Program Development
- Evaluation of Transmission and Pipeline Congestion and Planned System Expansions
- Renewable and DSM Developments Tracking
- M&A and ISO Restructuring Impact Analysis