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by Jake Landis
As electric power markets grow and expand, so is the number of companies offering tools to support power traders.
This means that when you’re looking at energy trading software solutions, you have multiple options, but it can be daunting to determine which one is best for your needs.
Explore our list of 12 recommended questions to ask to help you compare data suppliers and see which energy trading software solution is right for you.
Data Quality Questions
1. What's your process for collecting revision data on critical things like locational marginal price (LMP)?-
- What to Look For: Best-in-class tools will provide data accuracy and revision checking and verification. For example, at Yes Energy, we ensure that over 99% of our data streams are configured to automatically check for revisions from the data source and to load them into our system, so you have access to the latest data.
Data Freshness Questions
2. How frequently do you update your data feeds, and what is the typical latency between information you report and its availability to your customers?- Why This Matters: This is important because in power markets, seconds matter. Having the latest data quickly and reliably will allow you to make the best decisions for your strategy, especially as the bid deadline approaches.
Source: Yes Energy’s QuickSignals, showing the countdown that depicts when the screenshot will refresh, usually every .03 seconds.
3. Can you provide specific examples of your data refresh rates for critical market data such as locational marginal prices (LMPs), supply and demand figures, and weather-related data?-
- Why This Matters: This can help you determine if the company can supply the data quickly enough to meet your needs.
4. What mechanisms do you have to ensure that real-time data remains current and reflects the latest market conditions?
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- What to Look for: ISO and RTOs occasionally experience delays or errors when posting data. Understanding when and why these issues occur provides peace of mind, ensuring you’re alerted once the problem is resolved and data is flowing normally again.
5. How do you handle data from sources that experience frequent outages or delays, and what’s your strategy to mitigate the impact on data freshness?
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- Why This Matters: Markets can often have outages, so it’s essential for a vendor to have a plan in place. For example, we give you alerts if an ISO has a data lag and will contact the ISO for resolution
- Why This Matters: Markets can often have outages, so it’s essential for a vendor to have a plan in place. For example, we give you alerts if an ISO has a data lag and will contact the ISO for resolution
Data Security Questions
6. How is my company’s data protected, and how do you manage it?-
- Why This Matters: Data security is essential, both for business and legal reasons.
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- What to Look for: You want to ensure that your proprietary information is confidential.
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- What to Look for: A solid company will have a series of systems and protocols in place to ensure data security.
Data Integration Questions
9. Do you clean or standardize the raw data, and if so, what type of cleaning do you do?-
- Why This Matters: One of the most important features is data integration, the ability to clean, standardize, and unify data from multiple sources so it’s accurate, consistent, and ready for analysis. Pulling data from an API or a cloud-based data platform such as Snowflake and into your own systems should be as seamless as possible.
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- Why This Matters: Having a robust data bank is not enough. A solution going the extra mile to calculate crucial market information like shift factors will enable you to dig deeper into market analysis and congestion analysis.
Source: Yes Energy’s PowerSignals. Each line represents a grid constraint.
Ease of Use Questions
11. How easy is it to use the solution? How intuitive is the platform?-
- Why This Matters: The point of the tool is to save time and be efficient. For example, you can easily learn to operate our products within a week. Our flagship product, PowerSignals, lets you extract six months’ of data at once easily for an LMP and export it, and you can integrate it quickly into your analysis.
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- Why This Matters: Your business may be working around the clock, and you want to have support in emergencies. Although you can reach our knowledgeable custumer success team during business hours, we also have a strong collection of help articles for those working after hours.
Conclusion
We have a robust team ready to answer your questions, whether you’re an industry veteran or just getting started. With information dating back to the markets’ inception, we make it easy for you to analyze, extract, and act on power market data.
We have three flagship products, designed to be used solo or in tandem. All of our electricity trading software platforms provide access to near real-time market data, including prices, constraints, outages, and load. However, they each have features that make them easier to use in specific situations.
- PowerSignals is your strategic analysis platform. It offers standardized live and historical power market data, along with advanced visual analytics. Use it to help develop trading strategies, analyze trends, and monitor market drivers.
- QuickSignals is a real-time alert and monitoring tool that delivers immediate insights into ISO conditions as they unfold. Use it to react quickly to price spikes, constraint shifts, and other movements, so you can instantly act on trading opportunities.
- DataSignals delivers engineered, model-ready information across all nodes and markets – delivered through the technologies that best fit your workflow (API, Cloud, lake).
Ready to see our electricity trading platform in action?
About the author: Jake Landis has been involved in nodal power markets since 2007. He previously worked at a large utility company in real-time trading and asset optimization through term and financial power products. Additionally, he spent time trading financial products with a private trading firm before joining Yes Energy in 2019.
