Pharos Enterprise Intelligence

Commercial Operations Management Consulting

We specialize in developing and improving asset management business processes. If you are about to enter a new market that we support, we can assist in developing your asset management desk. Alternatively, if you are already established, we can analyze your operations for improvements. We emphasize leveraging the latest technology to provide low cost and flexible solutions to managing power plants. Our experience in improving business process has resulted in increasing efficiency (reduced hours spent on mundane tasks), reduced errors, and enhanced understanding and control of managing power plants. We also analyze communication and collaboration processes to enhance your ability to do more with less.

Analytical Tool Development

Software creation does not have to require a dedicated programming staff. We believe that for many applications Microsoft Excel with Visual Basic, standard on most PC installations, is a powerful solution. Excel is a tough program to beat for flexibility and ease of use. It allows a non technical analyst to easily maintain and modify functionality which is critical in a dynamic industry like power where rules change, strategies change and the ISO's change their data formats. We use this environment to build bid and decision analysis tools and simple settlements and accounting systems. We can develop new tools or enhance existing ones to streamline your workflow.

Analytical Support

We can provide additional analytical support for your operations. We can perform the time consuming data collection and preparation or take it further and provide a more detailed analysis. We have the technical capability to work quickly and efficiently as well as the business knowledge to understand what is relevent.

Training

If you are new to a market or have new employees, we are available to educate your staff to succeed. Our current expertise is in the NYISO and ISO-NE energy markets. We are also available for technical training in market interfaces and analytical tool development. If you are interested in building your own asset management system, we can help you understand the basics.

Information and Knowledge Management

Information management is proving to be an increasingly important part of any business. It is part of the reason why we created the Pharos Asset Management System. An energy company has access to terabytes of data at any given moment. Knowing what information exists, how to access it, who owns it, and its derivatives* are all important to understanding, your business and making good decisions. We can assist in setting up processes for managing your information.

Proper communication is equally important. How do you communicate and share information throughout different levels of your organization? Good decision making begins with getting the best possible information into the hands of the right people. We can implement simple strategies for improving organizational communication and collaboration.

Knowledge management is about documenting the hard-won experience your organization develops over time. It plays an important role in business continuity and risk management. What happens if you lose key individuals? How quickly would you be able to recover and fill that role? How quickly can someone new be trained and get up to speed? There are simple technological solutions to mitigate those risks. We can assist in developing processes and creating solutions for managing your knowledge.

Services Specific to the NYISO

Expert Witness/Forensics Consulting

Contact us if you need an expert witness to analyze historical commercial operations, bidding, and general economic analysis of a power plant operating in the NYISO.

Commercial Operations Auditing

We can provide a third party review of your commercial operations covering everything from bid strategies (maximizing within the rules not competitive strategies), processes, communications between all functional groups, the operators and management. We can help you ensure you are not leaving money on the table.

Energy Management Services

Are you looking to outsource the commercial management of your assets? We can either perform the work for you, jointly manage your assets with your group or train your group how to do it themselves. Joint management of power plants is low cost solution that provides a high level of capability and control while minimizing your risk of relying too much on a third party. Ask us about how we have managed power plants for our clients.

For more information please contact us at info@pharos-ei.com

* Perhaps the most overlooked part of information management is understanding the ownership of data and its derivatives. For example, one person may be responsible for collecting forward price curves. Those curves may be modified by another for forecasting purposes in valuing a contract. Someone else may use a different set of curves to value the same contract for a different application. Where problems arise is when people do not consistently use the same information. Most of these problems can be solved through effective business processes and understanding of information.