Say goodbye to fumbling with Excel spreadsheets and hello to efficiency!
The situation
Even a market leader can be pushed to its limits once in a while. This is precisely what happened to the Axpo Group. Switzerland’s largest producer of renewable energy is also a global player in the international energy trading market, with involvement in around 40 countries in Europe and the United States. Current market data, which the company had long maintained in Excel spreadsheets, is crucial for success. However, the flood of information grew from year to year, along with the effort required to manage it. This was hardly possible anymore on the basis of manual data collection, despite the addition of more and more employees.
The challenge
What they needed was a completely new way to manage their market data, one that was precise, fast, efficient and, above all, no longer carried out manually. Wouldn’t it be a dream if the data could be collected and checked automatically? And if there were also powerful tools for analysis, such as ones that could create hourly price forward curves (HPFC) for the various energy markets? Axpo Group envisioned a solution that could do even more: A system that would be flexible in terms of expansion to include information of any type and that could forward data for advanced analysis in other IT systems such as the ENDUR trading system or the central market data pool. Calculations for risk management were also to be fully integrated and automated.
The solution
Working closely with the Axpo team, we transformed these wishes into reality, developing a tailor-made solution that included a central market data hub for automation, storage, checking and flexible staging of data from multiple sources for various additional processing steps.
What we are particularly pleased about is that this hub is now having a formative influence on the entire ecosystem of the Axpo Group. The new hub integrates data from more than 100 data sources throughout the world – including websites, FTP servers, APIs and data files sent by e-mail. It imports 1,700 separate datasets, makes 250 calculations daily and currently involves 55,000 time series with 55 billion individual values. Everything is completely automatic, giving the Axpo team clear market reports and models.
What we are particularly pleased about is that this hub is now having a formative influence on the entire ecosystem of the Axpo Group. The new hub integrates data from more than 100 data sources throughout the world – including websites, FTP servers, APIs and data files sent by e-mail. It imports 1,700 separate datasets, makes 250 calculations daily and currently involves 55,000 time series with 55 billion individual values. Everything is completely automatic, giving the Axpo team clear market reports and models.
Axpo Solutions AG market data hub, image source: Axpo Solutions AG
The benefits
- Customised functions: the central hub forwards the data to Axpo’s other key systems (such as the market data pool, ENDUR and Powel)
- Unrivalled user-friendliness: the system also incorporates data calculated in third-party systems and introduces them into the data cycle (such as by making the FX forward curve provided by ENDUR available in SAP)
- 24/7 availability of the most recent data
- Clear structure: one system hosts all the data for all of Axpo’s central energy trading processes
- A long service life: the system grows with the requirements and is subject to constant optimisation
- Client-friendly terms: comprehensive online release under special terms and conditions during the coronavirus lockdown
- Maximum efficiency: automated processes and easy system maintenance
Project facts
Client:
Axpo Solutions AG | www.axpo.com
Industry:
The energy industry
Project results
High process efficiency through automated data processes
High data quality
Up-to-date reports and analyses at the click of a button