Author: Malcolm Souness, Director, 221b Limited
Some time ago the customer specific energy margin was determined and used to identify a number of issues within an energy retailer. This is extremely commercially sensitive, with all data extraction, transformation and analysis performed independently to maintain confidentiality.

A series of sales channels were compared, with one presenting substantially less energy margin per kWh than all others. We also identified a series of historical online billing and direct payment discounts that had been reported against the energy ledger, artificially understating the energy margin by mid six figures each year.

This started out within the Microsoft PowerBI environment, however this proved limited in its ability to chart the margin of >100,000 customers. The R programming language was employed, given its extensive libraries for interrogation of databases, transformation and cleanup of data, and presentation of charts. In addition, the R scripts are readily auditable, and the results are reproducible.

If you suspect your energy margin is being eroded, and cannot clearly explain why - contact Malcolm in confidence on 021 565557.