Congestion management system (EPOS)

Objective

• APG's congestion management, carried out together with European TSOs and Austrian power plant operators, is performed manually.
• Due to strongly increasing congestion volumes, the settlement amounts rise as well — the process is highly error-prone and not audit-proof.
• Based on the existing process, the new congestion management system EPOS is to fully digitalize and, where possible, automate the communication with the European partner TSOs and the power plant operators.
• It is also to provide new functions for evaluating and tracking both the execution of measures and the settlement.

Approach

As the performance of the legacy system could not be improved with the existing vendor, the decision was made to develop a new system to better support APG's employees in processing mass data and to simplify monitoring and analysis. As several projects had already been delivered successfully with ReqPOOL, the decision to take this path together was easy.

Result

Specification: together with the business unit, a requirements specification was created within only two months in just 8 weekly workshops. ReqPOOL drafted it in line with all legal requirements of the federal procurement act, so it could be used without delay in an EU-wide tender. Due to the project's size, a complex two-stage procedure with prior notice in the upper threshold range was necessary. Tender: ReqPOOL offers its clients long-standing experience and best practices in purchasing and procurement support and was therefore invited to accompany the tendering process. Legally compliant suitability and award criteria were defined, and presentations were arranged in which the vendors demonstrated their individual solutions. Negotiation and award: a complex, customized evaluation matrix ultimately determined the most suitable vendor — by price and quality of service. The use of many best-practice documents saved the client considerable effort, as did well-founded negotiations in the subsequent negotiated procedure. Implementation and project management: only one year after the start of the specification, the project is already at the beginning of the implementation phase. Together with the integrator and the client, and with ReqPOOL's help, the functional specification is being refined. Test operation starts in the coming months; half a year later the new system will go live and replace the legacy system. With its expertise in project management and requirements management and tools such as the requirements catalog and the test specification, ReqPOOL ensures that schedule, budget and quality are met.