 The SOPTIM VIM Distribution Information Management supports energy distributors with all modules that are needed for the processes from registering potential clients to billing. On one hand the day-to-day business in the fields of contract and offer management, calculation, forecast, management of change and auditing can be processed efficiently. On the other hand, distribution can be reliably controlled based on consistent and reliable indexes.
Customers
All attended customers and their supply points are stored in SOPTIM VIM with name, address data and name of supply point. Furthermore, SOPTIM VIM supports the modeling of major and bundled customers with a hierarchical structure consisting of three levels. Optionally further data regarding contacts and contact reports can be defined for each customer.
Commodities
SOPTIM VIM supports the commodities electricity and natural gas; this includes all the vital system functions like calculation, contribution margin calculation, forecasts, change or supplier, calculation of net access fees and management of offers and contracts.
Contracts and Offers
The supply contract is the central element in SOPTIM VIM; it combines all supply conditions concerning distribution and system. The contract consists of one or more partial contracts, which make a subdivision with different conditions for groups of metering points or periods possible. Offers have the same structure as contracts and the only difference is their status.
Distribution Structure
In SOPTIM VIM distribution can be structured into profit centers and/or segments for a suitable structuring of the distribution market and to achieve an optimum co-operation with procurement. In each distribution segment suitable tariff products are defined and procurement and distribution costs determined.
Costs and Revenues
The basis of every calculation and contribution margin calculation is the exact collection of all costs and revenues of an offer or contract.
On the cost side SOPTIM VIM calculates with
- Procurement costs, which can be defined using a price forward curve (PFC) or the procured tranches, including the spot prices and prices for balancing energy
- Costs of net access and further information that can be stored historicized and updated by subscribing to the database Netznutzungsentgelte of ene't GmbH (differentiated according to market regulations in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland)
- Distribution costs, risks and margins that can be freely defined on the segment level
Revenues are modeled using
- Tariff products using work, output and basic prices, subdivision according to MT/ST and summer/winter and optional scaling and zoning
- Individual prices calculated by SOPTIM VIM based on the costs and margins
- And more freely definable components of price or discount.
Models of Tranche
Within calculation and contribution margin calculation SOPTIM VIM offers the option to use models of tranche to determine distribution prices or cost of procurement for a more individual design of prices. In this, the supplied energy quantity is segmented into tranches that are priced separately – because of customer order or procurement procedures.
Collection of the Actual Procurement Costs
The exact determining of the actual procurement costs is of vital importance, especially for major customers. For this implicit tranches are used that register each order procedure before start of supply with a separate price and separately price quantities of spot and balancing energy.
Bottom-up Distribution Forecast
The high-performance calculation core of SOPTIM VIM forecasts the distribution consumption using the reference day procedure or based on hourly temperature regressions for metered metering point and the standard load profile procedure for not metered metering points. In this regional holidays and management calendars are considered. Especially for the forecast of consumption of natural gas the influence of temperature is considered in the referenced day procedure or, for standard load profiles, using the Münchner Modell (Munich Model). SOPTIM VIM calculates the required sum load profiles (total consumption euro contract, distribution segment, balancing group, client, and so on) from the separate forecasts bottom up.
Calculation of Offers and Distribution Margin Calculation
SOPTIM VIM can calculate offers and the contribution margin of existing contracts for single and bundled customers. For offers, individual price agreements, e.g., based on the current stock market prices, can be calculated. Calculation is done ex ante or ex post, based on the forecast or actual usage, and the corresponding cost and revenue data. Indexes are determined per metering point and month and can be combined very flexibly in reporting.
Automated Change of Supplier
The module for supply management integrated in SOPTIM VIM is proficient in the German (BNetzA, EDIFACT), Austrian (e-Control, csv), and Swiss (VSE, ebiX) rules of the market for both electricity and natural gas and makes the automatic registration and deregistration of supply with the particular system operators and sending and receiving of cancellations possible. In this SOPTIM VIM supports both the role of old and new supplier.
Balancing Group Management
Especially for active suppliers SOPTIM VIM provides the option to dissolve balancing group data according to system operators and the thus trace discrepancies between the calculated SLP forecast and the actual SLP quantities reported by the nets.
Communication and Exchange of Data
For the processing of communication with partners in the market and the data exchange processes that go with it SOPTIM VIM is linked to SOPTIM EDI on database level. All communication processes and their parameterizing and logging are routed centrally over this EDIFACT server.
Auditing Accounts
SOPTIM VIM supports the complex process of auditing accounts for the areas of net access and provision by an interactive checking and registration functionality. In this invoice data can be imported, and a check conducted in a job. Tolerances that can be defined make it possible to distinguish between correct and problematic invoices.
Reporting
With its component Flexible Reporting SOPTIM VIM provides an option for users to create their own reporting. With this users can easily document not just energetic and economic key data important for distribution control, but also statistic data on customer gains.
Integration
For integration into accounting systems SOPTIM VIM's integrated important/export of contract data provides the basis for a variable processing of the required exchange of master data. Solutions can also be created using the market interface (UTILMD) or a direct link to the accounting system.
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Further Functionalities of the Distribution Information Management System SOPTIM VIM ... 
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