The Need for Specialized Software

Energy markets are rapidly deregulating around the world. The structure of these new markets and the transactions involved in their operation demand a new class of high performance software systems. This is especially true for electricity, which is generated, transported, and consumed at the speed of light.

Electricity is measured and priced in hourly and/or subhourly segments. Some electricity transactions can even occur at a minute-by-minute frequency. The high frequency of electricity transactions and high resolution of price, consumption, and delivery data creates the necessity for virtual real-time analysis, valuation, and transaction processing while also managing, manipulating, and interpreting very large volumes of data.

Existing load forecasting, power trading, scheduling, billing and other business systems designed for handling data records measuring monthly or other relatively coarse time interval transactions simply are not up to the challenge. The industry is already cluttered with software failures in billing and other functions which will surely get worse as deregulation expands and increases the volume of high resolution data to be managed.

The primary problem rests with the fundamental structure of the widely used relational databases and computational procedures that access those databases. The overhead that makes these databases useful for a broad set of applications renders them relatively inefficient in managing and manipulating large volumes of high resolution data.

A database structure that is specifically optimized for managing high resolution data is needed to support the real time business processes of the deregulated energy markets.

A Solution: TRM -- The Time-related Modeling System

TRM is an integrated data management and application development language that was designed to achieve maximum efficiency in business applications involving time series data. Designed to capitalize on the time-related structure of business data, TRM’s architecture has demonstrated extraordinary data storage and computational efficiency with high frequency time-series data, such as the hourly and subhourly data that is involved in the operation of deregulated electricity markets. TRM provides real competitive advantage in virtual real time transaction processing, data analysis, and interpretation in applications, such as load forecasting, power trading, delivery scheduling, billing, risk management, and customer information systems.

TRM has a full set of tools for fast, easy programming of energy market application systems, including: database management, algebraic processing, statistical analysis, model creation and simulation, report writing, and programming control structures.

TRM support data structures for thirteen frequencies from one minute to annual. Aggregation of data from higher to lower frequencies is handled automatically without any special programming. TRM supports time-related, hierarchical, relational, and networked data structures.

TRM -- Comprehensive, Integrated Application Development Facilities

TRM has a full set of tools for fast, easy programming of energy market applications systems:

• Database Management
• Algebraic Processing
• Statistical Analysis, Model Creation, and Simulation
• Report Writing
• Programming Tools

Database Management

The TRM database is structured to store data in relation to time. This intelligence about dates associated with data observations facilitates the storage, retrieval, manipulation, transformation, and consolidation of time-dependent data while automatically and correctly aligning all dated values. Knowledge about the time-related structure of data also eliminates substantial overhead required for access and storage of the data. Time-related data is classified according to size of the time increments over which the data concepts have been measured, or the frequency of the observations.

TRM currently supports thirteen frequencies:

1. One Minute
2. Five Minute
3. Ten Minute
4. Fifteen Minute
5. Thirty Minute
6. Hourly
7. Daily
8. Weekly
9. Monthly
10. Quarterly
11. Semi-Annual
12. Annual
13. Undated

Aggregation of data from higher to lower frequencies is handled automatically by simply specifying the controlling frequency.

While TRM is optimized to handle time-related data, hierarchical, relational, and networked data structures are fully supported. The physical and logical data structures can be entirely independent, allowing an unlimited number of differing user views of the same database. User views, once formed, can be manipulated without any effect on the underlying data records.

The TRM database management system offers extensive security protections. Up to 253 data security classes can be established to protect data partitions to any level of specificity.

The TRM system also permits effective control over the factors that affect machine efficiency, such as record access methods, the use of memory, and buffers.

Algebraic Processing

TRM has complete algebraic processing facilities, including:

• Algebraic Operators
• Logical Operators
• Arithmetic and Financial Functions
• Time-Related Leads and Lags
• Group Algebra; and
• Matrix Algebra

Statistical Analysis, Model Creation, and Simulation

TRM has powerful facilities for statistical analysis, model creation, and model simulation, including multiple standard regression methods, polynomial distributed lag regressions, cross-sectional time series pooled regression, and automatic simulation of recursive and simultaneous equation models. Monte Carlo and other simulation analysis procedures are supported.

Report Writing

TRM has an integrated, flexible time-oriented report writing facility featuring automatic time aggregation with cycles and patterns. For example, reports can easily show subhourly, hourly, daily, etc. data on the same report by simply defining aggregation cycles or patterns. Column algebra can also be incorporated in reports. Formatting can be tailored or controlled by standard option settings.

Programming Tools

TRM has a full set of programming tools, including:

• Arguments and Symbols
• Group Creation and Manipulation
• Looping and Logical Branching
• Nested Procedures
• Custom Commands

Operating Environment

TRM is specifically designed for optimal performance running on IBM’s robust VM/ESATM operating system on IBM P/390® and S/390® servers. In this environment, TRM is fully scaleable for virtually any size of application.

Reliability

The basic TRM design is derived from other ESC software that has been used extensively by major electric, gas, and telecommunications utilities for many years. TRM is built on a successful time-oriented database structure that has been extensively refined and expanded to optimally handle high resolution time series data. TRM’s tested heritage combined with the robust IBM software/hardware platform assures virtually absolute TRM reliability in serving the time critical needs of the new energy markets.

Specialized Capabilities to Meet a New Market Need

TRM’s design and operating environment bring together tried and tested concepts refined and optimized to provide a set of capabilities required to solve new business problems. TRM is a solution for quickly implementing applications that involve large volumes of high resolution data and require virtual real time processing. TRM is the solution for fast, efficient, reliable, and secure applications.