New Contracts and Settlement System

ESB Customer Supply is currently implementing a new solution to manage all its external wholesale electricity purchases. At present it buys its energy from a wide range of sources including ESB Power Generation, Edenderry Power Ltd, and AER (Alternative Energy Requirement) generators. In addition, it has two major new contracts operational from March 2006 - with Aughinish Alumina Limited and Tynagh Energy Limited. These will provide a combined total of 450MWs of energy.

The Contracts and Settlement System (CSS) Project was established in June 2005 to implement revised processes and systems to support the financial settlement of all of Customer Supply's external wholesale purchases. The project is part of the Wholesale Capabilities Development Programme, which includes a number of projects designed to prepare Customer Supply for changes in the Irish wholesale electricity market.

The final solution consolidates all external wholesale contracts and agreements into one system, thus facilitating better operational management, improved data management and enhanced management reporting. Due to the particular complexity of the contracts to be managed, the solution involves a sophisticated bespoke system built by ESB IT Solutions.

The project team includes Anne Ruddy as Project Manager, Niall Fahy as IT Solutions Project Manager and Noeline Gibbons as Senior Business Lead. Karl Leavy and Niall Doherty also made very significant contributions to the design of the solution. Other project team members include Eric Nolan and Louise Kelly, with Charles Becker and Eoghan Hurley as IT developers. The project is being delivered in two phases: in April 2006 to support management of the Aughinish/Tynagh contracts, and in May 2006 for the management of the remaining contracts.