September 18, 2002 - Borland has announced that Powergen’s energy trading business, now part of E.ON group, has developed a new Java-based trading system.
The solution has reduced the time taken to complete energy trades from hours to just minutes. Powergen’s in-house team used Web Services and Java™ software and support services from Borland.
Borland was chosen above competitors for the range of back-end benefits its technology delivers, as well as the company’s ability to offer a tailored solution coupled with
expert advice.
In March 2001, New Electricity Trading Arrangement (NETA) regulations came into force to open up the UK’s wholesale energy market to full competition. Powergen enlisted Borland to assist in the development of an integrated trading system that would empower its traders to react to market conditions in real-time.
Previously, Powergen used a mixture of vendor packages, disparate systems and spreadsheets. Borland’s software helped move Powergen’s legacy trading systems onto a J2EE™ architecture that was chosen for its speed and openness.
Powergen is using Borland® JBuilder™ to build the applications which manage and consolidate trading data. These run on the Borland® Enterprise Server, AppServer™ Edition. The Borland Professional Services team also worked alongside Powergen’s in-house development function to design and build the bespoke solution, and educate the team on maintenance and ongoing development of the solution.
"Successful trading doesn’t just rely on the experience and skill of the traders itself. It also requires speed, flexibility and reliability, and this comes from the underlying technology infrastructure. Market conditions can change rapidly, and there are continuous requests to expand our trading capability into new areas. This innovative new system, enabled by Borland technology, has played a central role in helping Powergen take the lead in one of the world’s most competitive and lucrative wholesale energy markets," said Simon Piercy, senior project manager at Powergen.
"Borland’s technology and experience exceeded expectations and were crucial to putting Powergen at the forefront of Web Services development in the utilities sector. Futhermore, Borland Enterprise Server products were not only competitively priced, but also very user-friendly, despite the fact that our in-house team had not previously used Borland’s products," said Andrew Bennett, senior developer at Powergen.
"Powergen was looking for excellent technology and an experienced partner it could work alongside to deliver its new system within an extremely tight timescale," said Nigel Brown regional vice-president and general manager of Borland EMEA. "Our credentials showed not only that our software technology was right for the job, but that our professional services team could add real value to the project. The software now in place is extremely flexible, which will allow Powergen to build on it in the future, possibly incorporating collaboration via integration with other exchanges."