Purchasing centre

THE ENERGY PURCHASING CENTRE, SUBSTANTIAL SAVINGS FOR PUBLIC PLAYERS

The total liberalisation of the Walloon energy market as of 1 January 2007 had negative consequences for the finances of the towns/cities and the communes:

• loss of revenue linked to the commune’s monopoly in the sale of electricity and gas;
• volatility of costs relating to electricity and gas consumption.

In this context, IGRETEC has studied and set up an energy purchasing centre federating the towns/cities and the communes and other public structures (Province, public welfare centre, hospitals, police zones, etc.) in the context of the I.P.F.H. (Pure Intermunicipal Financing Company of Hainaut), which is the main partner of ORES Assets,  the intermunicipal management company for the Walloon mixed electricity and gas network, and federates the interests of the towns/cities and the communes in the energy sector. It is organised in sectors following previous mergers, which avoids confusion among assets guaranteeing the long-term future of the profit-sharing methods specific to each of the former pure intermunicipal financing companies, while maintaining decision-making autonomy in each sector.

This grouping, which takes the form of joint gas and electricity contracts, aims to achieve economies of scale in terms of management and the fulfilment of public contracts and to ensure budgetary stability in the negotiable component of electricity and gas prices.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL…

Through joint electricity and gas contracts, we manage around 9,000 supply points that generate some 200,000 bills per year. A management software package has therefore been deployed.

This software has been made available to members of the energy purchasing centre via a web platform. All the information on the consumption of electricity and gas is centralised here, regardless of the energy suppliers that win the joint contracts initiated.

Additional functionalities are regularly made available, aiming to:

• improve knowledge of consumption. In fact, knowledge of consumption profiles is an essential step along the path towards the rational use of energy and also enables savings to be made, in particular by detecting anomalies;
• integrate technical data from sites in order to establish benchmarks;
• draw up expenditure budgets;
• follow consumption by manual index encoding;
• standardise consumption on the basis of degree-days;
• provide the energy signature of a site;
• keep a comprehensive register of assets via gas and electricity supply points.

Finally, ‘views’ can be generated to meet the needs of managers in terms of financial, budget and technical data.