European Energy Services (EES), the London-based brokerage, will officially launch e-Gas & Power, an internet exchange for the trading of industrial gas and power for the industrial and commercial sectors, on Monday. The trading platform allows for negotiations in any kind of price structure (fixed/variable/index related) and can cater for an unlimited number of sites and meters.

The service e is free for trading customers and only charges suppliers a tiny percentage of the transaction - which can be as low as £0.0003 per kW of electricity and £0.002 per therm of gas. EES says that compared with a number of utility exchanges that have been set up recently, the marketplace created by e-Gas & Power has been designed to be the simplest to use and the only exchange to satisfy all the key requirements of the UK's largest energy purchasers:
Features include:

• Unique open bids system, creating the definitive competitive marketplace for suppliers and buyers
  
  
• The industry's simplest procurement procedure - a two-step purchasing process
  
  
• Transactions completed 100% online
  
  
• Real-time pricing information and the most comprehensive market data - only site to be supported by a traditional broker
  
  
• Entirely free to purchasers - no hidden costs
  
  

Ignacio Hidalgo, founder and CEO of both e-Gas & Power and EES said: "We believe this exchange to be the most targeted and competitive site within the European energy sector. We have drawn on the years of experience and expertise of trading gas and power that EES has gained in the wholesale and derivative markets since 1994, and combined this with the cost and time savings that the Internet offers, to deliver a service that will change the procurement of gas and power for good. Deregulation and the internet has ensured this market is set for an incredible transformation and we plan to be at the forefront of this."

The exchange is focused squarely on meeting the needs of the UK's heaviest consumers of gas and power who typically purchase these utilities for multiple sites, says Hidalgo: "Where other websites offer up to a five-step process per site to procuring energy, ours is a simple and hassle free two step procedure, regardless of the number of sites a buyer needs to purchase for. This dramatically reduces the time spent on tendering for gas and power. When you have 100 sites, that's a huge saving in time and costs!"

The e-Gas & Power exchange has been built by Archway Consulting based on the Ariba B2B Commerce Platform technology.

Ignacio Hidalgo, CEO and founder of European Energy Services (EES) and e-Gas and Power

Richard Byatt