I recently attended the mPower M2M conference in Vancouver, BC, interested to learn how Machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies might compliment or enhance the functionality of the ZEMA Suite of applications. With as many as 50 billion of these machines transmitting data within the next few years, this is an area that is getting a lot of […]
As Manager of Business Development, part of my role is to build relationships with companies with whom I feel there will be a synergy that will benefit our clients. The partnerships that result from these engagements fall into several categories ranging from simply swapping logos on our web sites to actively referring one another to […]
I sit in a lot of sales calls and I was recently in a meeting with a prospective client in which we were asked if we “cleanse” market data as part of our service offering. This is a question that I hear a lot and unfortunately is an indication that there is a good deal of confusion within the market about what data cleansing really means. In this case, what the client was really asking was whether we correct market data that is issued from data vendors such as Platts, GFI, Argus, ICE, etc. The short answer to this question is “no” we don’t “cleanse” market data in this context and truth be told, nobody should be or is allowed to independently change 3rd party market data on behalf of the client. There is however, a process for handling data issues and errors.
I recently attended an energy trade and risk management conference in London and had the fortune of seeing first-hand the realities of our interconnected world and its effect on managing risk. The Tunisian and Egyptian governments had just fallen in the face of popular uprisings and Libya seemed to be on the verge of a civil war. Blackberries were buzzing full time all around me as companies wanted to know their exposure to this unexpected risk that was unfolding in North Africa and had the potential to spill over to the Middle East. Compiling this uncertainty, we are now faced with the prospect of a nuclear meltdown at several reactors following the catastrophic earthquake in Japan.
As Gensler and the Democrats continue to face off against the Republicans and Wall Street over the consequences of the Dodd-Frank Act, one thing is clear; corporations will continue to try to mitigate their exposure to risk through greater oversight of the information they handle and process. This is not simply because they had trouble figuring out their real risk exposure during the collapse of the financial markets in 2008, but also due to the greater transparency required in their transactions, and new incentives for whistleblowers to turn them in.
Last week I attended Distributech 2011 in San Diego. What I came away with was the sense that we are well on the way to sorting out the many operational complexities associated with installing and connecting millions of smart meters across the country. Demand response, time of use billing, outage management and ways of tying in renewables are all well on their way to becoming entrenched as standard operational functions. So what is the next stage in the development of the Smart Grid?