Understanding Markets

Markets define the jurisdictions or regulatory environments in which a service point participates.

Markets also define market relationships for valid service providers and their roles within a market (distributor, etc.). While each service point specifies only one market, a utility may serve more than one market, and different service points throughout the utility's service territory can be linked to different markets.

For each service provider defined for a market, you can also specify a fallback service provider.

Service Providers in Deregulated Markets

Some utilities operate in deregulated markets. In implementations in deregulated markets, the system can send information to and receive information from a variety of market entities. These entities are defined as service providers.

For example, a service point's distribution company and/or energy supply company may subscribe to its consumption, or a service point's meter service provider may send requests to ping the meter that's installed at the service point to verify connectivity between the meter and its head-end system.

Different Relationship Types in Different Markets

Each market can define different relationship types between its service providers. A single instance of Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management or Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway may have service points in different markets where each market has different relationship types and service providers. For example:

  • In a regulated market the distribution company is the de facto energy supplier and meter service provider.
  • Another market might have two relationship types and a single service provider for each relationship:
    1. There is a single energy supply company for the entire market
    2. There is a single meter service provider for the entire market

Yet a another market might have two relationship types (energy supply and meter service). In this market, there might be multiple service providers for each relationship type. Each service point can choose any of the relationship type's service providers. If a service point does not declare a specific service provider for a given relationship type, the relationship type's "fallback" service provider is assumed.