The CTRM Blog

Recently, I learned about the so-called “Flex Contract” now offered in the United Kingdom (UK) energy industry by energy retailers and reached out to Simon Piercy, Commercial Director at UK-based Energy Trading and Risk Management (ETRM) software vendor, Contigo, to try to find out a bit more about this particular contract type, and what is required in an ETRM solution to cater for these contracts. Flex Contracts provide the ability to procure energy in a more flexible and informed way, and offer an alternative to a one-off contract price. The benefit of the contracts are seen to be greater choice over when to buy energy and the opportunity to make the most of market conditions.

UK-based ETRM software vendor, Contigo, continue to find success in the European energy trading market, with two deals completing in May, according to Simon Piercy, Director at Contigo.

The first sale sees their customer licensing the enVoy intra-industry communications product. enVoy, part of the enTrader suite, will be used to provide an integrated nomination process to Elexon, the UK Power market operator. This new entrant to the UK market plans to trade power across the interconnector. In addition, Contigo are providing services to assist the party with gaining the qualification to enter the market.

UK-based Contigo is a relatively newEnergy Trading & Risk Management (ETRM) vendor that has began to carve out a niche for itself in northwest Europe. Founded by three industry veterans who had previously worked at Powergen (E.ON UK) in the systems area for trading & risk and other parts of the business, Contigo set out to “do it better.” The founders experience working with commercial and homegrown ETRM software at E.ON helped them gain an understanding as to the relative strengths and weaknesses of different approaches in ETRM software which they brought into sharp focus when founding Contigo. As Simon Piercy, Director, puts it; “When we founded Contigo, we knew there was a great opportunity to combine systems expertise with industry knowledge. We have a pin-point focus on this niche area and we’ve stuck to that rigidly—it means we’re up to speed from day one and can get started on projects without a lengthy ramp up time. We make sure customers projects are delivered quickly and are successful; in doing so we continue to grow and be successful ourselves.”

Back in 2009, I wrote about Contigo and its plans to bring new products to market and since then, Contigo has signed six new customers for its EnTrader software product including E.ON UK, Centrica, Barking Power, Drax, First Utility and RWE npower. Contigo seems to be becoming the provider of choice for many energy companies which are looking for expert knowledge of their business in a supplier. The company has adopted a different approach to solving the system implementation problem; this has also contributed to the sales and delivery success. Its enTrader software product, launched in March 2009, is quickly becoming a market leader in addressing both energy retail portfolio management and fuel logistics, as well as establishing itself as a serious contender in the ETRM/CTRM space.

Last week I was invited to be the Keynote speaker for Contigo at their inaugural user group meeting in Birmingham, England.

If you are not familiar with Contigo then they describe themselves as…”Contigo is a leading provider of trading and logistics software products for the energy industry. Based in the UK, it has developed the innovative and flexible enTrader family of products that deliver significant business value to its customers. It utilizes agile delivery methods and state of the art technologies to deliver and implement those solutions both rapidly and cost effectively.”