Utilities, power, and renewables

Adapt and automate your business processes with evolving power markets.

Discover what ION can do for you

Over three-quarters of the world’s top utility companies rely on an ION Commodities solution

With the acceleration of the global energy transition, businesses are facing increasingly complex processes in today’s fast-moving and volatile power markets. Organizations encounter evolving challenges whether they only operate renewable energy production, run a combination of fossil fuels, green fuels, and renewables, or simply concentrate on renewable certificates. ION Commodities offers industry-proven, highly scalable energy trading and risk management (ETRM) and risk analytics solutions to address the changing needs of the energy industry, empowering you to manage demand, drive profits, and lower risk.

Related sectors

Integrated energy

Global, asset-rich companies that often have their origins in fossil fuel production and marketing or fossil-generated electricity. As energy transition accelerates, these companies must rebuild their portfolio to include renewable power generation. Integrated energy companies also use their knowledge to drive innovation in the areas of renewable fuel generation and marketing.

Power generator

Generating power to sell at the wholesale markets. Besides traditional power generation using fossil fuels, this also includes renewable power such as hydrogeneration, wind, and solar. Power generators also trade gas, oil, or coal as raw materials for their generation.

Power marketer

Buying energy and transmission services from traditional utilities and reselling electricity to other utilities or power distributors without owning the assets used to generate electricity. By purchasing power from numerous sellers or participating in power trading, marketers can take advantage of the price disparities of various utilities.

Utility

Ownership of power production assets and delivery of power to retail or industrial clients, or to sell on the wholesale market. Utilities regularly trade gas, oil, or coal and ship it to fuel their fossil-based power plants. Nowadays, utilities also own renewable assets, such as wind farms or solar parks.

Value delivered

  • Challenge

    Adapting your system to the evolving market

    Businesses that generate and trade power face a highly challenging environment that demands comprehensive energy trading and risk management software. Challenges include market liberalization, increased use of renewables, and the need for more timely intraday position and risk reporting. New and existing regulations add extra costs and complexity in operational areas, such as cross border trading, clearing, compliance reporting, and accounting for hedges.

    Solution

    Centralize multiple commodities in one system

    The opportunity for improved profits lies within business operations, by creating a single resource for all relevant data, breaking down silos within the organization, and applying and sharing expertise across the enterprise. ION’s commodity management solutions provide complete support for the energy commodities of today and the future.

  • Challenge

    Tracking certificates

    The introduction of green power certificates has brought a unique set of complexities beyond buying and selling certificates. Linking certificates to production and demand obligations, as well as managing inventory along the way, is necessary to reconcile the transactions in your commodity trading and risk management solution with registry data. This is further complicated by the regional and commodity variation of certificates that require the management of validity, classifications, and IDs.

    Solution

    Full lifecycle management

    ION’s commodity management solutions help to link generated power and certificates to your renewable assets or throughout the value chain to ensure optimized certificate utilization, reliable inventory tracking, and best available position reporting.

  • Challenge

    Managing your renewable asset portfolio

    Power market traders and structurers need to model their portfolio of renewable assets and PPAs while factoring in asset-specific features, such as generation variability or curtailment. Accurate calculations of intrinsic and extrinsic values are required to construct optimal plans and hedging strategies that reduce risk.

    Solution

    Optimize your assets

    ION’s FEA solution provides decision support for companies investing and contracting in renewables. FEA’s tools for renewable asset optimization and structuring analytics provide an encompassing risk and asset management solution to help improve your decision making, which can help increase profits.

  • Challenge

    Meeting the needs of a growing green fuel market

    Green fuels are evolving into a global industry with continuously changing requirements. As more guidelines are put in place, businesses must quickly adapt to remain compliant. New types of renewable fuels also must be integrated into existing systems. Companies that produce, transport, and trade fuels face many challenges, including growing production and transportation complexity.

    Solution

    A solution ready for renewable fuels

    To simplify business operations, organizations need to break down silos and consolidate their data to yield a complete view of their portfolio and ensure regulatory compliance. ION’s commodity management solutions provide a complete front- to back-office solution for fuel handling, transport, and trading, covering both physical and financial trading and hedging.

  • Challenge

    Expanding your commodities portfolio

    Businesses covering most of the commodities portfolio face a highly challenging environment that demands comprehensive energy and utilities trading and risk management. As the traditional fossil fuel business becomes less popular, organizations need to expand their portfolio to include renewable assets, like renewable fuels and renewable power generation. These additions present new challenges that organizations need to bring into their existing business.

    Solution

    Manage all your commodities

    ION’s commodity management solutions provide the flexibility and scalability necessary to support your business—today and as it grows into the future. Our solutions are evolving with market trends to ensure we continue to provide industry-leading, innovative technology. We are the forefront of the energy transition and we heavily support the evolution of market standards.

Single integrated solution
Certificate markets support
Improved asset valuation
Rise of renewable fuels
Transform your business

Products

  • A customizable, industry-leading CTRM for utilities and energy companies.

  • A suite of leading portfolio risk analytics and asset optimization tools for decision support.

  • A comprehensive, multi-commodity CTRM for industry leaders operating at scale.

  • Why does my business need a commodity management system?

    Today’s business climate is becoming increasingly complex and volatile. Having a commodity management system to automate key business processes reduces operational costs and errors. Commodity management software provides visibility into and across your business, acting as a single source of truth so you can make more informed decisions. With events that are difficult to predict occurring more frequently, you need to quantify the actual or potential impact of events and decisions. Being able to determine exposures and risks of your current positions helps prevent highly volatile prices, supply or delivery disruptions, and counterparty bankruptcies from putting your organization’s solvency at risk.

  • I am a large company that deals in multiple commodities, including many that are not petrochemical. Which ION products should I consider?

    Regardless of your operating model, ION has a solution to meet your needs. If you’re looking to manage all your commodities in a single system, you might select Openlink, our most sophisticated and configurable multi-commodity solution. If you run your business units more independently and don’t require one system to manage all your commodities, a better fit might be RightAngle, a solution focused on liquid commodities with comprehensive standard functionality and significant customization abilities. Contact us to determine the right ION CMS for your business.

  • We are a small business with only a few users, no dedicated IT staff, and we currently operate on spreadsheets. Can we afford a commodity management system?

    Given the inherent risks of today’s marketplace, you likely cannot afford to not have a commodity management solution. Fortunately, ION has you covered. For small companies with limited resources, Aspect offers the ability to move away from spreadsheets and grow a business without adding staff. Aspect’s SaaS deployment model eliminates the need for an IT staff to manage your commodity management system. Contact us to find the commodity management software that meets your needs.

  • For my sophisticated, high-trading petrochemical business, just coping with daily activities is a challenge. Is there a commodity management system that can help?

    RightAngle is an excellent choice for organizations dealing with liquid or solid petrochemicals. RightAngle supports the supply side of a petrochemical business, including managing feedstocks, marketing, storing, and transporting, as well as the consumption of petrochemicals with sourcing and hedging capabilities. Contact us to determine if RightAngle is the best solution for your business.

  • With all the buzz about energy transition, should I hold off investing in a commodity management system?

    By improving operational efficiencies, commodity management solutions can help your business increase margins and free up capital for investing in energy transition. While ION’s solutions already support energy transition commodities, we are continuing to innovate our commodity management systems to further assist businesses through the energy transition.

  • It seems like my organization needs a commodity management solution. How can I justify the investment?

    The efficiencies of automation and improved data accuracy provided by a commodity management solution can empower organizations to grow without additional staff. Further, the ability to better cope with disruptive events is an often larger and overlooked benefit of a commodity management system. Finding commodities, rerouting commodities, and initiating mitigation efforts during a single disruptive event can often save a company more than the cost of an implementation and several years of licensing. In extreme events, commodity management systems can be the key to keeping your business operating and solvent.

  • How does ION’s power trading software help improve results in today’s volatile power market?

    ION solutions improve trading, scheduling, and operations. Take advantage of real-time data and make immediate adjustments in the highly volatile power sector. Streamline the entire value chain, including supply, trading, marketing, and scheduling. It’s never been easier to make smarter, better decisions.

  • How does ION’s power trading software align with European power markets?

    ION solutions provide expanded and integrated functionality across deal capture, pricing, position management, scheduling/nomination, transmission, confirmation matching, and settlement for UK and Continental European power markets. The seamless integration allowed by our solutions further facilitates straight-through processing and eliminates integration cost and risk to the customer, all while complying with EFET standards.

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