Case Study: E.ON UK – Imbalance Data Analysis Project

Background

E.ON UK is one of the UK’s leading integrated power and gas companies, generating and distributing electricity, and retailing power and gas - and are part of the E.ON group, the world's largest investor-owned power and gas company.

In April 2006, E.ON launched a data analysis project in order to determine the cause of a purchase and sales imbalance. Goodridge Consultancy personnel performed a sample analysis on the data, which lead to the identification of a number of root causes.

The challenge

The value of the imbalance discrepancy was significant, and this figure became E.ON’s target for recovery. E.ON UK had not set established any timescales, nor had any processes been identified to prevent the imbalance from increasing.

E.ON’s initial objective was to prevent the flow of any new imbalances, but this remit was later widened to include retrieving the lost revenue.

The Solution

Goodridge Consultancy personnel provided out a comprehensive solution:

• carry out root cause analysis
• identify system and process challenges
• recognise and inform of any industry issues that may have impacted the imbalance
• disseminate any knowledge, particularly in the Settlement area

In order to do achieve this, the business team analysed information gathered from the last 12 months which enabled them to identify potential root causes, in addition to any other areas that required further investigation.

We are currently at the stage of identifying volumes for each of these root causes before in-depth analysis starts in full. In the meantime, we are investigating any known problem areas, such as Long Term Vacant (LTV), change of tenancy and unmetered supplies.

Our business teams continue to organise the project around working individual accounts in order of top imbalance. Each account’s imbalance is calculated by analysing the difference between the total billed and total settled volumes for a rolling 22-month period.