MECOMS® steers DELTA smoothly through the SPOED chain testing

- PERSBERICHT -

ANTWERP / MIDDELBURG — 23 october 2003 — As part of the SPOED project (the Netherlands ‘Support Programme for Energy Market Liberalisation, Phase Three’), the first ‘chain tests’ were conducted last week at Delta. The purpose of these tests is to ensure problem-free implementation of liberalisation on 1 January 2004. These tests went very well for Delta.

Changing suppliers requires verifying and exchanging a large amount of data between suppliers and the network manager. This includes information such as customer data, connection data and meter readings. As a result of liberalisation of the energy market, all participating energy companies having information systems that deal with customer processes, such as network managers, suppliers and metering companies, must redefine, redevelop and re-test their systems.

EnergieNed is guiding the implementation of all necessary arrangements in individual companies by means of the SPOED project. Besides tests carried out on information systems by the individual companies, they will also be tested for proper interaction with each other by SPOED using ‘chain tests’. These tests will cover all processes involving the exchange of customer data.

Delta also found themselves compelled to fully revise their support IT system and bring it in line with the mandatory separation of trading and network activities. In early 2003, Delta decided to utilise the Ferranti MECOMS® package as the core system for network and metering operations, with electricity and water being integrated in the first phase. In less than nine months, a joint task force formed by Delta and Ferranti succeeded in setting up the new infrastructure and integrating it with all relevant peripheral operational systems. The system, which will go live at the beginning of December, was put through all the functional, volume and performance tests, including SPOED.

The functions presently provided by MECOMS® are:

• Central database of meter readings and time series (current and historical)
• AMR (Automatic Meter Reading), MV 90
• Validation
• Allocation en reconciliation G
• Connection registry
• Messaging (EDINE, EDIGAS, AS2)
• Web Interface
• Integration with billing and CRM

In early 2004, all of the requirements for gas will also be implemented. After that, the system will manage more than 600,000 metering installations. With MECOMS® as the core system, Delta has laid a foundation that will allow additional operational processes to be integrated in the future, such as meter reading (management and routing).