The SPi Group Inc. (SPi)
Toronto, ON
Company Overview
Headquartered in Toronto, The SPi Group Inc. (SPi) provides operations, services and solutions for clients in competitive energy markets. With 70 energy sector clients, the company combines expert support, software development and consulting teams with extensive expertise in the energy industry. Active since the early planning stages of the province's competitive electricity market, SPi continues to assist market participants in the implementation of new initiatives such as Ontarios Smart Meter Initiative (SMI). SPi is the leading clearinghouse service provider in Ontario, processing 100% of the provinces retail market data, which includes over one million meter points. SPis system is one the largest of its kind in the world by volume.
Company Information
Physical Address
500-214 King St W
Toronto, ON M5H 3S6
CA
Mailing Address
500-214 King St W
Toronto, ON M5H 3S6
CA
Additional Details
Legal Name: The SPi Group Inc.
Number of Employees: 35
CA
With expertise spanning custom software development, system integration, consulting, managed services and market operations, SPi offers a broad range of professional services to address all your business and technology needs both today and tomorrow. The breadth of our services and solution portfolio, our market knowledge, and our success in delivering reliable, large-scale systems are key factors in ensuring that our clients achieve their business and IT objectives.
SPi has over 70 Ontario energy sector clients.
Hydro Ottawa: Developed key functionality to enable seamless integration between Hydro Ottawa's new Customer Information System (CIS) and SPi's EBTx Hub Connector (Spoke) and EBTx Data Clearinghouse (Hub), enabling the client to meet regulatory requirements.
Ontario Market Operations: Our EBTx data clearinghouse (hub) connects over 70 clients to the market. The EBT hub has processed, stored, audited, and cleared some 140 million XML-based data transactions since Ontario market opening; making it one of the largest and most reliable systems of its kind in the world.
Ontario Energy Savings L. P.: Co-developed a custom billing application with the client to enable rapid expansion into other markets. Based on the concept of a market model, the solution defines how OESC will manage customer enrollment, billing, and settlement information independent of the data and utility idiosyncrasies of individual markets.
The SPi Group used its broad knowledge and experience in energy and related markets to help us implement systems that meet our business's changing needs as our presence in the Ontario market rapidly expands.
Paul Devries Chief Operating Officer Ontario Energy Savings Corporation (OESC)
Few firms understand both the technical and business sides of the electricity industry, and only one of themThe SPi Groupis the dominant hub service provider in the Ontario market.
Mary Craddock Manager, Retail Division Oakville Hydro Energy Services Inc.
Further references available upon request.
Contacts
Gary Michor
Title: Chief Executive Officer
Area of Responsibility: Domestic Sales & Marketing, Export Sales & Marketing, Management Executive, Government Relations
Phone: Show phone
Fax: Show fax
Services
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Billing And Settlement
The SPi Groups comprehensive suite of billing and settlement solutions and services is designed to help companies reduce the time and effort required to resolve billing and settlement issues.
General Billing and Settlement System (GBASS):
Designed to allow energy companies to enter new markets quickly and efficiently, GBASS uses a market model concept which defines a common method for managing customer enrolment, billing and settlement information, independent of the data formats and communication methods unique to each utility and market. The common market model concept allows GBASS to be extended to support multiple concurrent markets and commodities. The solution employs leading-edge Web-Services technology based on open standards including SOAP and XML. The GBASS solution is currently operating in three US market jurisdictions: the NICOR gas market in Illinois, Peoples Energy, based in Chicago, and North Shore Gas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Peoples Energy.
Customer Billing and Settlement System (CBASS):
This advanced billing and settlement engine, designed specifically for the Ontario retail electricity market, captures and processes all information flowing between a market participant and its trading partners, ensuring that all transactions adhere to specified business rules. The modular architecture allows individual components to be reused in many ways to ensure maximum flexibility in accommodating current and future requirements. The CBASS system is one of the most widely used by electricity retailers in the province.
- Custom Software Development
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Energy Conservation Services
Current and future conservation initiatives outlined by the province of Ontario will require organizations to reduce their energy consumption. However, a comprehensive view of consumption data can be difficult to obtain.
SPi is investing in research and development to make electricity consumption information more readily available to organizations. SPis conservation services combined with our technical expertise, will help organizations do their part to create a conservation culture in Ontario.
Consumption Information Collection Service:
This service empowers property managers and head office personnel with the consumption information they need to understand how their businesses use electricity, allowing them to better manage their electricity costs.
Conservation Readiness Plan:
Focusing on the people, IT systems, infrastructure and operational processes needed to manage smart meter data, this plan will help organizations assess and align their business with the core objectives of the Smart Metering Initiative (SMI) and other corporate or provincial conservation initiatives.
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Managed Services
The SPi Groups managed services portfolio allows energy retailers and distributors to focus their IT resources on core functions and business initiatives, while SPi manages and maintains their back-office market solutions and supporting infrastructure.
By choosing our managed services, clients save time and resources that would otherwise be spent on deployment and maintenance of internal systems needed to compete in the Ontario energy market. SPi offers a full range of IT systems and solutions developed for the Ontario market including communications between distributors and retailers, as well as back-office and market operations services.
Managed Service for Retail Operations:
SPis retail operations managed service allows retailers to enter the Ontario market more quickly, and save the time and resources required to understand and adapt to Ontarios complex market standards.
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Market Operations
SPi guides market design and the development of data exchange standards in Ontario and across North America. SPi played a key role in the opening of the Ontario electricity market to competition, steering over 70 market participants through the pre-market opening design and testing phase.
Since the start of operations and the opening of the market, SPi's data clearinghouse service has met or exceeded all regulatory requirements and service level agreements with its customers for performance and availability.
Today our systems handle 100% of retail market data, including enrolment, usage, meter, settlement, and invoice transactions, for almost one million consumers in Ontario. Our EBTx clearinghouse service processes millions of XML transactions monthly, and boasts 99.98% up-time over the last yearmaking it one of the worlds largest systems of its kind by volume and one of the most reliable.
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System Integration
The SPi Groups IT projects have included numerous system integration efforts, bringing disparate elements such as CRM, CIS and back-office systems together to provide a consistent set of applications and data reporting mechanisms. We have integration expertise with over 21 different CIS systems, as well as considerable experience in bringing together the Microsoft and Java worlds.
Our integration expertise allows clients to realize the full benefits and advantages of open standards, bringing new efficiencies in the back office, streamlining value chains by allowing trading partners of all sizes to talk to each other, and allowing management to gain greater business visibility and operational control.
Additional Information
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