EnergySolutions

News

EnergySolutions Helps Improve Forecast Accuracy to More Than 95% at Fluxys in Belgium

January 9, 2006
Houston, TX

Energy Solutions International Ltd., a world leader in pipeline management systems, and Fluxys, a gas transport company, announced the successful implementation of GasLoadForecaster™ with immediate, favourable results. Fluxys has been able to improve the accuracy of their gas demand forecasts to more than 95 percent using the neural network technology included in GasLoadForecaster.

Fluxys operates as an independent natural gas transport company in the heart of Europe and plays a key role in the expansion of competition within the European gas market. The Fluxys network and the Zeebrugge Hub are central to cross-border natural gas flows in Western Europe. Fluxys needed a forecasting tool to effectively anticipate the requirements of gas demands on its network. The use of EnergySolutions’ GasLoadForecaster tool reduced forecast development time and improved accuracy, allowing Fluxys operational staff to react more quickly to demand fluctuations and transport constraints as well as to additional shipper capacity requests.

“Fluxys chose EnergySolutions because of the product’s accuracy and the robustness, comprehensive administrative functions and overall user-friendliness,” said Sophie Jehaes, project leader with Fluxys. “As an IT team member, I am interested in a solution that can be easily integrated with our other business applications but also can work standalone,” said Sophie. “The performance of the product, and the support we have received from EnergySolutions, perfectly fulfilled our expectations. We found the GasLoadForecaster to be very user-friendly”.

The GasLoadForecaster uses EnergySolutions J-Neural Net to forecast volume and energy targets at supply points along the pipeline network. This neural network model finds patterns in complex pipeline operations resulting from weather fluctuations, calendar information and other variables. Based on past activity, the network utilizes a training process, where it develops and adapts parameters used in the algorithms, which are employed when predicting future demand. The GasLoadForecaster is periodically re-trained to provide the most precise demand forecast possible for every meter in a gas pipeline system on a daily or hourly basis.

“The GasLoadForecaster is a fast, highly flexible and easy-to-use tool,” noted John Sherman, chief technology officer for EnergySolutions. “Customers can see immediate improvements in their gas demand forecasting capabilities by implementing this product. The multivariate, non-linear nature of gas market forecasting makes this a perfect application for neural networks. ”

About Fluxys
Fluxys, originally Distrigas was founded in 1929. At the end of 2001 integrated Distrigas was unbundled and Fluxys emerged as a transport company. Fluxys operates as an independent natural gas transport company. As a leader in the transport sector in the heart of Europe, Fluxys plays a key role in the expansion of competition within the European gas market. Fluxys has over 800 employees and a consolidated balance sheet total of 2,029 million euro (year 2002). www.fluxys.be.

----

About Energy Solutions International
Energy Solutions International is the leading global supplier of pipeline management software. The company’s broad range of products drives excellence in operational efficiency, transaction management, throughput management, and pipeline safety. Founded in 1976, EnergySolutions serves more than 500 clients in 70 countries through its offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Dubai, India, China and Canada. EnergySolutions is committed to providing integrated solutions to address the unique challenges of our industry. Our products support essential workflows by integration with each other and third party applications. Our products integrate with systems from all major SCADA Vendors including; Invensys, Siemens, Honeywell, ABB, SAIC, Yokogawa and Telvent, and major ERP vendors including SAP and JD Edwards. For more information, visit www.energy-solutions.com.

Our expertise is behind many of the energy industry's landmark projects, and billions of dollars of pipeline assets