Chicago Enterprise Data Management Workshop

Invitation to the Free ZEMA Enterprise Data Management and Systems Integration Workshop.
When: 11:00 am to 2:00 pm, March 3rd, 2011
Where: Hyatt Regency, 151 E Wacker Drive, Chicago, Illinois, US 60601, (312) 565-1234

ZE invites you to attend a free event in Chicago as we continue our series of ZEMA data management workshops. Attendance at the Houston and New York workshops were good and the feedback from those who attended were very positive. We thought a local venue would make it easier for our friends in the Midwest to attend.

The basic workshop premise is that despite the abundance of data available to us, it is increasingly more difficult to obtain timely and relevant decision support information when it is needed. The data management and analysis issue is especially apparent in the energy and commodity markets where disparate data must be collected, integrated and analyzed, and actionable results visualized in real time. Companies that are successful at streamlining, integrating and automating their business processes have distinct market advantages.

To help your organization address this issue, ZE invites you to join our complimentary Enterprise Data Management (EDM) Workshop, March 3rd, 2011 in Chicago. In this workshop you will learn:

• The importance of incorporating an easy-to-integrate solutions for data management
  
• How to efficiently collect data from and communicate with the ISO's - MISO, IESO, PJM, NYISO, ERCOT...
  
• How to effectively manage the complexity of multiple vendor feeds across all commodities
  
• How to automate forward curves and integrate curves with downstream trade and risk systems
  
• Data monetization through the use of an automated data management system
  
• The advantages of an internal data validation system
  
• How business process automation works to your advantage

Particular attention will be paid to the integration of the Adapt2 ISO Scheduling and Settlements system and the ZEMA EDM system within ISO Nodal Markets. ZEMA's unique agnostic architecture allows the software to easily integrate with any client system such as ETRM or Scheduling/Settlements systems. The presenters will discuss best practices and case studies of how clients are using the solution set to provide transparency and automation within the changing ISO markets. The event hosts are Adapt2, Allegro, IIR Energy along with ZE.

Who should attend?
• Market and Business Analysts
• Risk Managers
• Energy and Commodity Traders
• Hedge Funds Managers
• Market Data Managers
• IT Managers

To register for the workshop please visit the online registration page.

A block of rooms have been reserved for this event. For discounted hotel rates, please contact Jasmin Pandher by email to jasmin.pandher@ze.com or by phone 1-866-944-1469. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us or send inquiries to contact@ze.com.

N(M)ovember - Changing the Face of Men's Health

During November, men around the world were proud to change their calendars and take part in the annual "Movember" campaign against Prostate Cancer. Prostate cancer is the most common cancer amongst Canadian Men, currently affecting 1 in every 6 men, with an expected increase to 1 in 4 within a decade¹. In 2010 alone, 24,600 Canadian men will be diagnosed and over 4,300 men will die from prostate cancer². In 2008 global numbers reached 903,000 for reported new case of prostate cancer leading to 258,000 deaths³. Prostate cancer is to men what breast cancer is to women.

Wanting to do our part, ZE PowerGroup Inc ^® (ZE) joined Movember Canada and Prostate Cancer Canada, and several male employees put down their razors on November 1st to grow a mustache to show their support for the cause. ZE team members also contributed donations to the cause, and in addition, ZE donated $25 dollars for every participating employee. This has been added to the $19.8 million that has already been raised in Canada, and the $58 million raised globally in the fight against Prostate Cancer.

ZE is focused on giving back as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility. ZE participates in many different charitable events including sponsorships, donations, and volunteer events. This past year ZE has been involved in multiple fund raising programs including our charitable donations to CARE Canada at $15,085 for Haiti Relief and $8,075 for Pakistani Relief. ZE will also be involved with raising a variety of different donations for the Richmond Food Bank as part of our giving back during the holiday season.


Some of our Movember participants. Photo taken November 30th 2010.

ZE is an experienced software and strategic consulting firm that combines energy industry expertise with advanced software development capability. The company possesses deep industry knowledge and comprehensive operational experience. ZE is the developer of the ZEMA data management and analysis solution which collects data related to coal, power, gas, crude, financial, weather, emissions, hydrology and others and is used as a business process automation and integration tool for small and large scale organizations alike. ZEMA is created by experts to meet the specific challenges faced by energy industry participants.

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¹Prostate Cancer Canada
²Canadian Cancer Society
³http://globocan.iarc.fr/factsheets/cancers/prostate.asp

Trade and Risk Systems Will Be Able To Assist Effective Decisions

Olga Gorstenko, Manager of Consulting Services for ZE PowerGroup and Bruce Colquhoun, ZE PowerGroup's ZEMA Sales Manager, attended the APPrO (Association of Power Producers of Ontario) Conference which was held in Toronto on November 16-17, 2010. The conference focused on the Ontario's Green Energy Act and issues associated with its implementation. The event attracted over 1,200 attendees, with a majority of which representing the renewable power sector. The political aspect of the public policy was the core issue under review.

According to Olga, the representatives expressed interest in the effects from renewable generation expansion, with the emphasis on financing, environmental concerns and future development of the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) and generation procurement programs. Also she said that the participants discussed system reliability, transmission expansion and upgrades, and distributed generation connections with the grid.

Bruce participated as a speaker on a panel and outlined his vision of the role of Data Management Systems (DMS). In particular, he emphasized that improved DMS will allow companies to continue to make effective decisions in the face of ever increasing data. "It is an increasing importance to automate properly the collection and analysis of data and the ability to integrate with trade and risk systems. Companies that do this effectively will have a distinct advantage by being able to take decisive actions based upon highly complex data sets with greater confidence and speed. DMS will be the engines that drive this," said Bruce.

ZE PowerGroup was the Technical Sponsor of the event and was pleased with the turn out.

ZE PowerGroup and Adapt2 Provide an Integrated Custom ISO Scheduling and Settlement System for ERCOT Nodal Market Transactions

ZE PowerGroup Inc ^® (ZE) announced its collaborative development with Adapt2 Solutions, Inc. to create an integrated scheduling and settlement support system for clients preparing for the ERCOT Nodal transition. The engagement is designed to combine Adapt2's deep market knowledge and software development capabilities with ZE's expertise in market data collection and integration.

ZEMA's scheduling engine, the Data Manager, is being used as the middleware component to Adapt2's ISO Scheduling and Settlement framework. The overall system is initially targeted for the upcoming ERCOT nodal market launch but is readily applied to any ISO market.




ZEMA provides a scheduling interface for Adapt2 to send and receive Market Transactions amongst other datasets within the ERCOT Nodal framework. Data capture and posting includes:

• Energy Trades - Bilateral
• Ancillary Services
• Congestion Revenue Rights Offers
• Capacity Trades
• DAM (Day Ahead Market) and RTM Energy Bids - Awards
• RUCs - Charge Management
• Month to Date Settlement Reporting - Daily Drill Down

The overall service complies with the secure communication protocol developed by ERCOT and allows for confirmation of each transaction within the clients existing ETRM.



Waleed El-Ramly, COO Product Development at ZE PowerGroup states, "This collaboration makes sense for both of us. We are familiar with Adapt2 and have worked together on other accounts. They understand the nodal market requirements from both a systems and client standpoint. Using ZEMA we provide them the tools that they can leverage to post and return transactions and settlements data back to their solution. We facilitate trade activities and the overall settlements calculations." Francisco Diaz, President of Adapt2, adds, "ZE is a dominant market player when it comes to data acquisition and enterprise solutions, they know how to handle information of any type. The client benefits with best of both worlds through a robust and also cost effective solution created by two strong software providers."

ZE and Adapt2 have already introduced the new system to the market and are currently in the testing phase of implementation by their collective clients. For detailed information on services relating to the management of ERCOT's Nodal transition, contact a ZEMA representative today.

The Energy and Commodity Data Conference to Become a Premier Global Annual Event

The response from the User Forum and Data Management Conference has been very positive and ZE is looking forward to making this annual event the premier global energy and commodity data conference.

Most of attendees gave a very positive feedback saying that it was a very interesting and useful event. They described the function as a productive way to share ideas and to learn more about ZEMA software. Their appreciation of the great hospitality of Vancouver was notably acknowledged. Sample feedback from the events:

"I just wanted to thank you for the Conference. It was a very interesting event with a lot of diverse presenters and it helped us understand better the potential for our use of the ZEMA product going forward."

"I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for organizing such a great conference. It was a productive way to share ideas and learn from the best in the industry. It also provided in-depth exposure to the ZEMA products and services in order to for us to enhance the value it brings to our organization. It was a pleasure to meet the ZE Power organization and we look forward to our continued partnership. Please pass along my thanks to everyone who made the conference such a success!"

"It was my pleasure to talk about your software. Hope to be partners with you for years to come."

"Thank you for providing us with a sponsorship opportunity and allowing us to participate in a panel discussion. What a nice event, congratulations!"

"I very much appreciate the hospitality in showing me your home city and hosting us for the ZEMA User Conference. The sushi was great but enjoyed getting to know one another even more."

"...it was great to meet you and your colleagues last week, thank you very much for the invite. We respect the spirit and professionalism of everyone at ZE. We look forward to continuing our progress with ZE and we are confident we can accomplish great things together."

"Thank you for your hospitality in Vancouver!"

"That was very useful and productive conference."

2010 ZEMA User Forum and Enterprise Data Management Conference Successfully Ended

Last week many attendees of the ZEMA User Forum and Enterprise Data Management Conference said good bye to Vancouver and returned home. The exciting events brought together friends and colleagues within the energy and commodities industries for a valuable information exchange and networking opportunity. Many were happy to join us and share their insights with the experts in the industry. The events were also filled with corporate functions and social events with non-profit benefits, and as most agreed, their time was well-spent. The events were well received and created energy for the future ideas and projects.



The User Forum's first day was opened by a welcome speech from Dr. Zak El-Ramly, the CEO, president and founder of ZE PowerGroup. Following Dr. El-Ramly, the ZE IT group gave a few presentations where users were engaged and sessions were overall interactive. New product demonstrations included ZEMA Dashboard, ZEMA Data Validation, and the new ZEMA Curve Manager add-on. The ZEMA users' discussions were focused on the challenges of managing broker data feeds and the frequent data format changes associated with them. The second day of the User Forum was hosted by the ZE Consulting Group and was filled with the demonstrations of ZEMA Market Analyzer's tool capabilities with a focus on Forward Curve capabilities. During the discussion, the users provided a few new ideas and suggestions that will help to make some interesting improvements and additions to the ZEMA Suite of Products.

Among the Conference speakers were

• Aiman El-Ramly, Senior Vice President Strategy, ZE PowerGroup Inc.


• Alex Melekhin, Director of Analytics, ZE PowerGroup Inc.


• Alex Zhukovsky, Director Quantitative Risk, National Grid


• Anup Singh, Director Global Markets, Sapient


• Bjorn Hagalmann, COO, MRE Consulting


• Daniel Brummer, Director of Alliances, Allegro Development Corporation


• David Linton, Chief Executive, Updata


• Don Jefferis, Partner, Opportune LLP


• Dr. Zak El-Ramly, President and CEO, ZE PowerGroup Inc.


• Larry Heitkemper, Vice President and Director Weather Services, MDA Earthsat Weather


• Manal El-Ramly, Director Eastern Office, ZE PowerGroup Inc.


• Michal Peliwo, Manager, Product Development, ZEMA Suite


• Olga Gorstenko, Manager, Consulting, ZE PowerGroup Inc.


• Ross Allen, Washington Bureau Chief, Argus Media Inc.


• Sam Wilhelm, Director Business Development, SolArc Inc.


• Spencer Gallagher, Senior Director, Reference Data Interactive Data Pricing and Reference Data, Interactive Data Corporation


• Tatum Vittengl, Sales Executive, Weather Service International (Weather Channel)


• Tim Almdal, Enterprise Architect, ZEMA Suite


• Timothy Hebert, Vice President Energy Operations, Energy New England

The Conference ended Thursday night with a closing speech by Dr. Zak El-Ramly, where he thanked all who attended the events. For more information about these two exciting events that took place in Vancouver, BC, October 24-27 please visit ZE Conference Organizers.

ZEMA: The No Compromise Solution

The ZEMA Suite™ is an Enterprise Data Management (EDM) and Analysis solution designed to align and manage your corporate data needs. Built specifically for the energy and commodities markets, ZEMA is a highly recognized and respected software solution leader that continues to help organizations of all sizes handle the challenges of data management and integration in evolving and complex markets...

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