Putting Traders In a Position To Make the Right Decisions

“We have more than 100 turbines, and more than 20 pumps. The optimum dispatch of these units is shifting every 15 minutes. Tripling the staff would not help, it would still be way too much information to process in 15 minutes. We are not automating because we are nerds, automation is just a given to stay in this market,” says Gaudenz Koeppel.

Based in Baden, Koeppel is the Chief Analytics Officer at Axpo, Switzerland’s largest producer of renewable energy and an international leader in energy trading.

Koeppel is a featured guest in the Volue webcast Time for Energy, together with Munich-based Roland Peetz, Senior Vice President Trading Solutions at Volue and a pioneer in automated short-term energy trading.

Hosted by Trond Straume, CEO of Volue, the webcast discusses the rapidly changing energy market. With the implementation of rooftop solar, small wind, storage, electric vehicles, residential boilers and more, the world will go from 20,000 to 200 million power producing assets in a short period of time.

“Technology will help us communicate with these assets and make it possible to participate in a market in a way that would not have been possible before,” says Peetz.

The need for talent

“Given an increase in the level of automation, is there less need for talented traders?” asked Straume. Both Koeppel and Geetz answer “No”.

“Automation is about processing information and taking decisions on time. It is not about replacing repetitive tasks with some kind of robot. Trading requires a variety of skills; data scientists, UX designers, and traders that have a feel for the market,” says Koeppel.

“The role of the trader has shifted massively in the last five years and will shift massively going forward. The focus used to be on what is the right trading decision. Today, we worry if our data flow is running smoothly in our systems, if our systems are connected, if the automation works, and if our models for recommended trades are giving the expected results,” says Peetz.

The need for collaboration

When more markets move to a 15-minute granularity, processing an increased information flow will be a challenge in a daily operation.

“Going forward we will see more collaboration. As a trader, I used to be able to control everything. Now, with this complexity, I have to rely on my colleagues. I cannot be a data scientist, a software engineer, a trader and everything else,” says Koeppel.

Time for energy - a Volue webcast

Time for Energy is a series of discussions about technology and the opportunities in the energy transition. Each episode features two industry experts in dialogue with Trond Straume, CEO of Volue.

Watch the full episode below, or listen to the podcast version.