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BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT FOR E-GOVERNMENT

Software Development: Data Conversion Case Study Elexon Brief Create a database of Past Notification Errors (essentially incorrect meter readings) from information submitted by electricity suppliers. Business Case Elexon (formerly The Electricity Pool) manages the electricity trading arrangements in England and Wales. Elexon procures, manages and operates services and systems, which enable the balancing and imbalance settlement of the wholesale electricity market and retail competition in electricity supply. Each electricity supplier reports Past Notification Errors (PNEs) in very large text files containing complex information. The format and structure of these files do not lend themselves to examination or analysis of the data. Elexon therefore needed a program to convert the files into a structured SQL database from which they can generate a range of reports.

Implementation We designed and implemented the PNE database. We developed a Visual Basic application which uses the File System Object to read in the data files and extract the records. The program parses each record, checks for errors, reformats the data and populates the database. Each run of the program processes several hundred thousand records. Benefits Elexon now have access to all Past Notification Errors in one data source. They can use standard reporting tools to run complex queries which allow analysis of the data in many different ways. The data conversion program and the PNE database thus provide an essential performance monitoring tool.