Business Situation

In order to bid correctly, Ameren traders need access to information from many different sources. Every five minutes, they receive data on the output of each of Ameren’s generation units and how that energy is dispatched. On an hourly basis, they receive information from every location on the MISO network, which they use to forecast demand. Ameren also receives award information. In the morning, it submits bids to MISO; later in the day, MISO tells Ameren what units it can run the next day.

Solution

Ameren began working with technology integration expert Avanade on two simultaneous projects: the first, an extraction, transformation, and loading (ETL) solution to pull data in from different sources, conform the data, and then load it into a data warehouse. As an adjunct to the warehouse solution, the team also began an analytic and reporting solution. The second project was a Windows-based interface to present data from the warehouse and other sources in an integrated, format.

Results

With the help of Avanade, Ameren has been able to create a business intelligence solution that gives its traders a current real time trading status. The improved access to data also benefits other Ameren groups that support trading operations. Other advantages include: 

• One place for all the data. Instead of Excel spreadsheets and macros, Ameren traders now have a dashboard that can provide them one integrated view of the data.
• Real time updates. In the past, Ameren traders had to rely on macros to update data or else run the updates manually. Now the ETL solution and Position Report do it all for them, and they know that what they are looking at is the latest information available, so they can make trading decisions based on more accurate information.
• Ability to run reports: Now Ameren also has the ability to bring together the data for standard and ad-hoc reports. “Word is getting out that we’re putting all the data in one place, and other departments, such as risk management, corporate planning, and generation plant managers, want to see it,” says Mehallow.
• Foundation for future growth. The MISO market is a new one, but now Ameren is ahead of the game with a system that gives it information in real time. “Eventually we plan to expand the data coming into our EDW system and increase the use of the data with more analytical reports,” says Greg Ringkamp, manager, commercial operations support for Ameren.