A dozen utilities and cooperatives in 11 Southeastern states are working together to form a new bilateral market, called Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM).  SEEM will provide an automated clearing engine to match bids and offers in 15-minute intervals.   The market will increase the volume of real-time energy trades by using a zero-cost, non-firm transmission product, while meeting all transmission constraints.

SEEM will re-use the current infrastructure for bilateral transactions, namely enabling bilateral agreements, Etag schedules, and point-to-point transmission reservations.  Planned for go-live in October, 2022, SEEM is projected to generate annual benefits ranging from $40 to $100 million per year.

The purpose for this online EUCI course is to review the performance for the new SEEM market, review the trading workflow for SEEM market participants, transmission service providers, and administrators, and review strategies to maximize SEEM market benefits.  The program will help staff connect the dots between front-office trade creation and submission, 15-minute cleared trades and prices, profit & loss metrics, and settlement results.  It will also provide concrete case studies to illustrate how market participants can automatically create bids and offers using their resource plans and compute actual profits & losses for cleared SEEM trades using 15-minute meter data.

Learning Outcomes

Attendees at this course will:  

• Define the main objectives of the new SEEM market
• Discuss the potential costs and benefits for SEEM
• Examine the key lessons learned for 3 months of actual SEEM operations
• Identify who can participate in the SEEM market
• Assess how SEEM can be used to integrate more intermittent variable energy resources (wind and solar) in the Southeast
• Evaluate whether SEEM can increase grid reliability in the Southeast
• Consider the scenario – if your company decides to stay out of SEEM, but those around you join SEEM, how it could impact your operations
• Analyze how the SEEM market clearing engine works
• Demonstrate how market participants create sale offers and purchase bids to maximize market benefits
• Explain the BA responsibilities in the SEEM market
• Describe how transmission-service providers update transfer limits (also called NFEET limits) for transmission paths
• Recognize and understand key SEEM settlement charges for energy and transmission losses
• Assess how to use post-analysis with 15-minute meter data to compute actual profits & losses for cleared SEEM trades and provide feedback to market participants on SEEM trading strategies
• Apply post-analysis to identify SEEM Trades that are losing money and provide corrective strategies
• Distinguish what data you need to validate the SEEM settlement statements and invoices received from SEEM participants and transmission service providers
• Discuss how to best prepare your team (Front Office, Back Office, BA Operators, transmission service providers, IT, Plant Personnel) for the SEEM market
• Specify what IT infrastructure is necessary to support the end-to-end SEEM trading process – bid/offer creation and submission, P&L Analysis, to settlement validation

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2023 : CENTRAL TIME

9:00 – 9:20 a.m. :: Overview and Introductions

9:20 – 10:45 a.m. :: Overview on SEEM Market

• Design objectives for SEEM
• Key players in SEEM
• Understanding SEEM network model
• Reviewing SEEM workflow for SEEM administrators, market participants, and transmission service providers
• How does the SEEM market-clearing engine work?
• Reviewing actual benefits for SEEM
• Challenges faced by SEEM participants
• Frequently asked questions about SEEM
• Trading timeline & challenges
• Understanding SEEM terminology

10:45 – 11:00 a.m. :: Morning Break

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. :: Understanding SEEM Market Clearing Methodology

• Understanding RT SEEM trading workflow
• Using PCI SEEM market clearing engine to simulate five case studies
• Reviewing bids and offers
• Reviewing transmission limits
• Reviewing cleared trades and prices
• Reviewing settlement results and P&L
• Objective function for SEEM market clearing engine
• How does SEEM clearing engine handle transmission limits?
• When should you use all-or-nothing flags?
• When should you use adders for your generation offers?
• When should you use discounts for your purchase bids??
• Recommendations on SEEM trading strategies

12:30 – 1:15 p.m. :: Lunch Break

1:30 – 3:00 p.m. :: Trading Workflow for SEEM Market Participants

• How can you forecast 15-minute loads?
• How can you forecast 15-minute generation for Variable Energy Resources?
• Using EMS data to Initialize 15-minute resource plan
• Optimizing 15-minute resource plan for Remaining 7 days
• Computing incremental & decremental cost curves
• Using Business Rules to Create 15-minute bids and offers for SEEM
• How do you select sources for your offers and sinks for your bids?
• Reviewing SEEM Cleared Trades and Prices
• Reviewing SEEM Settlement Results and P&L

3:00 – 3:15 p.m. :: Afternoon Break

3:15 – 4:45 p.m. :: Automating Trading Workflow for SEEM Market Participants

• Need for automating SEEM Trading Workflow
• Importing 15-minute loads
• Importing 15-minute forecasts for Variable Energy Resources (Solar, Wind)
• Creating 15-minute resource plan
• Creating and submitting 15-minute bids and offers for SEEM
• Reviewing SEEM Cleared Trades and Prices
• Reviewing SEEM Settlement Results and Nominal P&L

4:45 p.m. :: Program Adjourns for Day

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2023

9:00 – 10:30 a.m. :: Understanding SEEM Network Model

• SEEM network model (balancing authorities, sources, sinks, transmission paths)
• Who creates eTags in SEEM market?
• Reviewing eTags uses in SEEM
• Key eTag stakeholders in SEEM
• Uses of EIR (Electric Industry Registry)
• What info is stored in eTags?
• Real-Time eTag adjustments
• Reviewing OASIS transmission reservations made by SEEM
• Roles of transmission service providers (TSPs)
• SEEM data submitted by TSPs (transmission limits, loss factors, loss rates)
• Understanding loss factors and loss rates
• Scenario showing full SEEM transmission workflow from creating TSR and eTag to RT scheduling
• Creating TSRs and eTags for cleared trades in SEEM

10:30 – 10:45 a.m. :: Morning Break

10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. :: Using Post-Analysis to compute Profits & Losses for Cleared SEEM Trades

• Using 15-minute meter data to build supply & demand stacks
• Computing incremental (INC) costs for resources that are ramped up to sell energy to SEEM
• Computing decremental (DEC) costs for resources that are ramped down to buy energy from SEEM
• Computing nominal and actual profits & losses for cleared SEEM trades
• Do all cleared SEEM trades make money?
• Understanding reasons why some cleared SEEM trades are losing money?
• Providing corrective action items to maximize SEEM savings
• Computing impacts of SEEM trades on fuel burn and emissions

12:15 – 1:00 p.m. :: Lunch Break

1:00 – 2:45 p.m. :: Settlement Workflow for SEEM Market Participants

• Reviewing SEEM settlement workflow
• Understanding SEEM market results
• Computing energy settlements for cleared SEEM trades
• Computing financial loss settlements for cleared SEEM trades
• Computing estimated and actual profits & losses for cleared SEEM trades
• What software tools to you need to validate SEEM settlements?

2:45 – 3:00 p.m. :: Afternoon Break

3:00 – 4:45 p.m. :: Strategies for Maximizing Benefits for SEEM Market

• What are lessons learned for SEEM participants?
• What tools do SEEM participants and transmission service providers need to support SEEM trading workflow?
• Discuss “Best Practices” to Maximize Benefits for SEEM Trading
• Lessons Learned from Other Markets

Course Review & Round-Table Discussion

4:45 p.m. :: Course Adjournment

Matt O’Neal, Information Technology Manager – Financial Services, Southern Company Services Inc 

Matt O’Neal is Information Technology Manager of Financial Services at Southern Company Services Inc.  He plays a critical role in the implementation of the Southeast Energy Exchange Market (SEEM).  He has more than 18 years of experience in commercial operations and technology at Southern Company.  Mr. O’Neal received his bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from Auburn University and his MBA from the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

Khai Le, Sr. Vice President, PCI

Over the past 45 years, Khai Le has conducted over 750 seminars on market-based operations, trading and bidding strategies, portfolio optimization, and shadow settlement for utilities and ISOs worldwide. He is currently working with market participants in RTO and bilateral markets to deploy the PCI Suite to automate their bid-to-bill, portfolio-optimization, ETRM, and BA-operations workflows.    Khai authored over 100 technical papers on unit commitment, hydro-thermal coordination, emission dispatch, optimization of ancillary services, post analysis, and short-term planning.  Five of his papers received prize awards.  Khai received his BS from Harvey Mudd College and his MS from Carnegie Mellon University.  He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Registered Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania. 

Buck Feng, CTO, PCI

Buck Feng is the product manager for the PCI SEEM Trading Platform.  He has more than 30 years of experience with portfolio optimization, post analysis, and risk management.  Mr. Feng obtained his master’s degree in Power Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.

Miao Cao, Manager, PCI

Miao Cao is the development manager for the PCI Post-Analysis system.  She has more than seven years of experience with post-analysis, portfolio optimization, forecasting and bid-to-bill. Ms. Cao obtained her master’s degree in Mathematics from University of Oklahoma.

Valeria Herrera, Manager, PCI

Valeria Herrerra is the product manager for PCI ETag+.  She currently supports the deployment of PCI ETag+ for all PCI clients in the US.  Ms. Herrerra received her master’s degree in chemical engineering from University of Oklahoma.

Patrick McGarry, Senior Director, PCI

Pat provides leadership, business development, and product management for the PCI suite of products.   Pat has over 32 years of experience with power trading, risk management, portfolio management, outage management, and bid-to-bill workflows.   Pat received his bachelor’s degree in finance from Fairfield University and his MBA from the University of Florida.