Challenge

As a strategic advisor to 47 municipalities and cooperatives and supporting their wholesale electricity portfolio for their 696,282 meters across ERCOT, SEnergy is trusted to recommend competitive strategies and support stable wholesale costs by their clients. SEnergy needed a reliable and accurate load forecasting solution to confidently enable their clients to implement more complex wholesale portfolios and manage their risk tolerances.

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Solution

Amperon’s scalable and accurate meter demand short-term forecast allows SEnergy to quickly onboard their clients’ meters and generate 15-day load curves. With increasingly volatile weather, SEnergy can plan two weeks in advance and conduct scenario analysis to prepare and support clients procurement strategies. In addition, SEnergy has incorporated Amperon’s Peak Alerts to build value-add services they offer to clients, helping them develop internal demand response programs and strategies to avoid coincident peak charges

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Benefits

SEnergy’s mission to deliver reliable and risk-managed power supply strategies to its clients is founded on trust. Amperon’s industry-leading forecasting capabilities provides data driven analytics so SEnergy can confidently manage power supply, create their own differentiated capabilities, and grow their clientbase.

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SEnergy’s Customer Story

SEnergy, Powered by Schneider Engineering, is an energy focused consulting firm and has offered services that support electric utility systems and business operations since 1991. They entered the power supply sector in 2010 and has since built a fast-growing client base of municipalities and cooperatives, primarily in ERCOT. As a trusted advisor to their clients, SEnergy develops, implements, and supports proven power supply strategies by providing ongoing risk management, market intelligence, and portfolio support services.

With a growing client base and new complexities in ERCOT, SEnergy recognized a need for hyper-accurate load forecasting to help ensure their clients had a firm understanding of their risks in the market.

To accurately assess exposure in the wholesale market, SEnergy needed a reliable forecasting solution to support their recommendations. Their initial vendor search yielded a variety of options and prices, all promising accurate load forecasts. However, once they dug in deeper, they realized not all platforms were created equal. Some load forecast systems yielded MAPEs greater than 2-3x than acceptable targets, with some exceeding 5x during peak intervals. As a trusted consultant who has built their business on trust and reliability, they quickly realized “you get what you pay for”, says Ramsey Cripe, Senior Consultant at SEnergy. SEnergy hired Amperon in early 2023.

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Amperon’s Impact

Amperon has onboarded and supports just under 1GW of load served by SEnergy’s clients and provides hourly model updates to their demand forecasts. “Amperon is an essential analytical tool to manage and mitigate market risks so that utilities can provide competitive and stable electricity prices to the homes and businesses they serve,” said Cripe. “Amperon’s meter demand short-term forecast has been invaluable in identifying the best approach for our clients’ power supply portfolios.”

In addition to a strong track-record of accurate load forecasting, SEnergy’s Power Supply Services team can effectively manage the uncertainty of volatile weather. Amperon’s meter demand short-term forecast provides a 15-day outlook and weather scenario modeling on its platform, allowing the team to evaluate weather event and prepare procurement strategies for the upcoming weeks.

More recently, SEnergy has incorporated Amperon’s Peak Alerts product into its suite of utility solutions. Peak Alerts forecasts peak demand and assesses the probability of a coincidental peak events, helping clients avoid coincident peak charges. SEnergy has added this forecasting resource as a value-add service for their clients, enhancing their internal demand response programs.

Demonstrating reliable and accurate load forecasting results will help SEnergy continue to strengthen its trustworthy brand. “We’ve built a strong track record with our client base,” Cripe said. “Our business is differentiated because we have a full suite of solutions—engineering, rate design, and power supply services—Amperon’s load forecasting capability is a core component of that.”