Having selected application software, the PX next needed to choose platform technologies for its metering solution. For this application, Microsoft SQL Server was the least expensive and most effective database. Ken Czarnecki, Director of Settlements and Billing at the PX, points to another advantage that the Microsoft BackOffice family offers. We have multiple applications that we have to integrate together, and multiple companies and other entities that we electronically interface with. Using BackOffice allows us to easily interact with them in an open environment.
Participants submit metered load data to the PX electronically over a private wide-area network.
Via a special communications gateway, E-VEE collects and authenticates that information, and then consolidates it in the system's Microsoft SQL Server database. Needless to say, the PX has been more than pleased with Energy Interactive. We've worked together well and developed a good partnership for the future. What's more, Czarnecki reports that users at the PX have found Energy Interactive's products easy to learn and operate. In fact, E-VEE and Energy Profiler are so easy to use, that the PX estimates they will require significantly less labor to operate than the other solutions it evaluated, potentially saving it an estimated 2,000 hours per year.