Applications

What is SATURN?

SATURN is a next-generation enterprise business management software that enables energy companies to manage production, demand, trading, retail, positions, revenues, costs, margins, and risks – streamlining operations and enabling decision support with confidence.

What are SATURN’s key applications?

SATURN integrates six key business management applications including market analysis, generation, trading, retail, risk, and portfolio management – empowering seamless integration of end-to-end solutions.

What are sample SATURN applications?

Sample most common applications include market intelligence, production costing, IRP, asset valuation, budgeting, forecasting, trade capture, trade valuation, risk management, retail, hedging, and portfolio management – along with advanced business intelligence, reporting, and visualization solutions.

What are the key features of SATURN Business Intelligence?

Key features include Predictive Analytics, Data Validation, Integration Solutions, Real-Time Intelligence, Interactive Visualization, Collaborative Intelligence, Regression Analysis, Attribution Analysis, Proactive Monitoring, and Automated Reporting.

What are the key features of SATURN Reporting & Visualization?

Key features include Configurable Reports & Charts, Aggregation & Filtering, Statistical Analysis, Documents Management, Workflows Automation, Emails & Notifications, Personalized Defaults, Configurable Dashboards & Heat Maps, and Integration with MS Office & PDF.

What are SATURN’s differentiating features?

SATURN offers several unrivalled features including breakthrough performance, broad footprint, seamless integration, advanced optimization and simulation, custom business intelligence – all in an easy-to-use configurable framework.

Solutions

What are SATURN Market Analysis key solutions?

Key solutions include Technical Trading Indicators, Forward Market Analysis, Spot Market Analysis, Inter-Commodity Analysis, Locational-Zonal Analysis, Volatility Analysis, Extreme Conditions Analysis, Weather Impact Analysis, Correlations Analysis, and Integrated Data Feeds.

What are SATURN Generation Management key solutions?

Key solutions include Production Costing, Integrated Resource Planning. Asset Valuation. Asset Management. Fuel Management. Emission Management, Budgeting & Forecasting, Contract Management, Outage Management, and Day Ahead / Real Time.

What are SATURN Trading Management key solutions?

Key solutions include Trade Capture, Confirmation & Logistics, Compliance Management, Position Management, Credit Management, Risk Management, Hedging Management, Settlement, Invoicing. and Ledger Integration.

What are SATURN Retail Management key solutions?

Key solutions include Product Design & Pricing, Rates Structuring, Power Supply Management, Position Management, Headroom Analysis, Competitor Analysis, Load Analysis, Risk Management, Hedging Management, and P&L Management.

What are SATURN Risk Management key solutions?

Key solutions include Market Risk Management, Generation Risk Management, Trading Risk Management, Credit Risk Management, Retail Risk Management, Operations Risk Management, Stochastic Simulation, Financial Engineering, Attribution Analysis, and Hedging Management.

What are SATURN Portfolio Management key solutions?

Key solutions include Market Analysis, Generation Management, Trading Management, Retail Management, Risk Management, Integration Management, Hedging Management, Efficient Frontier Optimization, Tradeoffs Analysis, and Multi-Attribute Optimization.

Features & Benefits

What are the differentiating features of SATURN Market Analysis?

Key differentiating features include unmatched solutions, reliable predictive analytics, and unrivalled tools & solutions; key benefits include actionable insights, informed commercial operations, and efficient risk management.

What are the differentiating features of SATURN Generation Management?

Key differentiating features include unrivalled speed, unprecedented solutions, and seamless integration across all applications; key benefits include streamlined optimization, increased productivity, and improved solutions.

What are the differentiating features of SATURN Trading Management?

Key differentiating features include unmatched valuation, informed trading, and real-time coordination across all trading processes; key benefits include optimized pre-trade valuation, effective risk management, and improved trading margins.

What are the differentiating features of SATURN Retail Management?

Key differentiating features include end-to-end applications, unmatched solutions, and seamless integration across all workflows; key benefits include effective product design & pricing, efficient load/supply balancing, and improved margins.

What are the differentiating features of SATURN Risk Management?

Key differentiating features include unrivalled risk metrics, rigorous stochastic simulations, and unmatched solutions; key benefits include effective risk management, efficient hedging, and optimized return-to-risk tradeoffs.

What are the differentiating features of SATURN Portfolio Management?

Key differentiating features include unprecedented solutions, unrivalled integration, and efficient frontier optimization; key benefits include efficient hedging, effective risk management, and improved margins.

Technical

Why is SATURN Market Analysis differentiated?

SATURN Market Analysis is differentiated by its comprehensive coverage of all commodities, extensive inter-commodity analytics, market dynamics tools, rigorous stochastic simulations, and most importantly an unparalleled parameterization application that enables accurate predictive analytics.

Why is SATURN Generation Management differentiated?

SATURN Generation Management is differentiated by its detailed modeling of generation units, diverse technologies, operating constraints, portfolio requirements, and most importantly a breakthrough knapsack optimization that offers unparalleled performance and unmatched solutions.

Why is SATURN Trading Management differentiated?

SATURN Trading Management is differentiated by its comprehensive coverage of all commodities, extensive inter-commodity analytics, real-time cross-groups collaboration, and most importantly rigorous simulation-based risk metrics along with advanced financial engineering valuations.

Why is SATURN Retail Management differentiated?

SATURN Retail Management is differentiated by its detailed modeling of customer loads, flexibility of structuring retail products and pricing, supply/load balancing, and most importantly rigorous stochastic simulations that enable accurate assessments and management of supply & pricing risks.

Why is SATURN Risk Management differentiated?

SATURN Risk Management is differentiated by its comprehensive coverage of enterprise risks including market, generation, trading, retail, operations, and most importantly rigorous stochastic simulations powered by an unparalleled parameterization application that enables accurate forecasts.

Why is SATURN Portfolio Management differentiated?

SATURN Portfolio Management is differentiated by its integration of market analysis, generation management, trading management, retail management, risk management, and most importantly a breakthrough implementation of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) efficient frontier optimization.

Best-in-Class

Why is SATURN Market Analysis best-in-class?

SATURN Market Analysis earns its best-in-class status through its parameterization solution combined with advanced business intelligence and stochastic simulations that enable most accurate predictive analytics including market trends & momentum.

Why is SATURN Generation Management best-in-class?

SATURN Generation Management earns its best-in-class status through its knapsack solution, a combinatorial optimization technique widely known as one of the hardest problems to find the best mix of resources to meet a set of constraints.

Why is SATURN Trading Management best-in-class?

SATURN Trading Management earns its best-in-class status through its rigorous simulation-based risk metrics along with advanced financial engineering valuations that enable most effective trading risk management.

Why is SATURN Retail Management best-in-class?

SATURN Retail Management earns its best-in-class status through its detailed modeling of loads across different segments, economic conditions, and weather patterns along with advanced product/pricing structuring and load/supply management.

Why is SATURN Risk Management best-in-class?

SATURN Risk Management earns its best-in-class status through its multivariate stochastic simulations combined with a parametrization solution and advanced variance reduction techniques that enable forecasting most accurate potential scenarios.

Why is SATURN Portfolio Management best-in-class?

SATURN Portfolio Management earns its best-in-class status through its breakthrough implementation of Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT) efficient frontier solution, an optimization process that requires fast algorithms and high-power computing.

Industries & Users

What industries does SATURN support?

SATURN offers custom solutions to IOUs, Coops, EMCs, Munis, Solar, Wind, Storage, PUCs, ISOs, PUCs, Regulators, IPPs, Banks, Hedge Funds, Investors, Load Aggregators, Gas Storage, Transportation, Data Centers, Refineries, Airlines, and Logistics.

What users does SATURN support?

SATURN users include market intelligence, production costing, IRP, commercial operation, budgeting, forecasting, financial planning & analysis, asset valuation, asst management, trading, risk management, hedging, and portfolio management.

What are standard SATURN use cases?

Standard SATURN use cases include daily commercial operation, trading, risk management, and hedging; monthly position management and forecast updates; and annual budgeting and long-tern planning.

What are sample ad hoc use cases?

SATURN ad hoc use cases include power sale & purchase structuring and pricing, asset valuation, position re-balancing, and various special projects. Most ad hoc use cases are high-impact initiatives that require speed, best-in-class solutions, and flexibility.

What are the common needs of SATURN users?

Common needs include predictive analytics, improved forecasts, risk management, hedging, portfolio management, improved solutions, actionable insights, increased margins, reduced risks, reduced costs, streamlined solutions, automated workflows, and decision support with increased confidence.

What are the key benefits of SATURN solutions?

Key benefits include saved time, reduced costs, increased margins, reduced risks, reduced redundancies, reduced errors, improved forecast quality, improved risk management, improved hedging, improved decision quality, increased confidence, actionable insights, and enriched organizational skills.

Technology

What technologies does SATURN use?

SATURN uses several technologies including Java, JavaScript, Scala, Tomcat, Swagger, Linux, Spring, Akka, and Hibernate and supports concurrency, distributed computing, and multi-threading. 

Where can SATURN be deployed?

SATURN can be deployed on-premise or in the cloud using physical (shared, dedicated), virtual, or grid setups.

What databases does SATURN support?

SATURN supports Oracle and PostgreSQL.

What APIs does SATURN support?

SATURN supports several APIs (Web, Private, Partner, Public) with partners and data providers including OTC Global/EOX, EnVerus Market View, Pharos AMS, WSI, Visual Crossing and others.  

What are the key features of SATURN technology?

Key features include enterprise security, authentication & authorization management, hardware load management. High Performance Computing (HPC), multi-threaded parallelization, optimized grid-computing, physical & virtual servers, continuous monitoring, and cross-device compatibility.

What are the key benefits of SATURN technology?

Key benefits include high security, data integrity, easy access, integrated solutions, real-time intelligence, interactive visualization, collaborative intelligence, proactive monitoring, efficient hardware management, high availability, efficient scalability, easy extensibility, and cross-device compatibility.

Analytics

What optimization does SATURN use?

SATURN uses several optimization methods including Dynamic Programming, Lagrangian Relaxation, Mixed Integer Non-Linear Programming, and Knapsack.

What stochastic simulation processes does SATURN use?

SATURN uses several stochastic processes including Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM), Auto Regressive Jump Diffusion (ARJD), and Mean Reversion Jump Diffusion (MRJD). 

What Variance Reduction Techniques (VRT) does SATURN use?

SATURN uses several VRTs including Principal Components Analysis (PCA), Latin Hypercube Sampling (LHS), and other stratified sampling methods.

Does SATURN develop simulation parameters?

Yes. SATURN derives simulation input parameters including volatilities, correlation factors (inter-commodities, markets, months), reversion rates, and spread/basis validation for both Forward & Spot markets.

What are the differentiating features of SATURN analytics?

Key differentiating features include reliable forecasts, optimized generation solutions, accurate trade valuations, effective risk management, and unmatched portfolio management.

What are the key benefits of SATURN analytics?

Key benefits include improved generation margins, improved trading margins, and optimized return-to-risk tradeoffs.

Support & Maintenance

Does SATURN offer online help?

Yes. SATURN offers users online help in various ways including FAQs, tooltips, user forum, user guides, and white papers.

How do I get support?

Abacus provides 24/7 support through our dedicated service team. Contact us anytime for immediate assistance.

What is Abacus’ support process?

Requests for support are treated with the highest priority and routed directly to a qualified subject matter expert. Every inquiry is addressed within the same business day, with most resolved within two hours.

How often do you release new versions?

A new version is released once every 12-18 months; patches are released on an as-needed basis to fix a reported bug and/or to offer user requested enhancements and customizations.

How much effort is needed to add applications?

Adding applications is very fast, non-disruptive, and seamless – it leverages deployed framework and standardized functionality including productivity tools, reporting, visualization, business intelligence, stochastic simulations, and optimization solutions.

How much effort is needed to migrate to a new version?

Migrating to a new version is very fast, non-disruptive, and seamless – it requires minimal effort for users; mostly one hour discussion and review of new features and improved functionality.

Licensing & Getting Started

What is SATURN’s License Fee?

SATURN Licenses are customized based on user requirements, needed applications, scale, scope, users, and a few details. This flexible model ensures you only pay for what you need – and can scale as your needs change. Contact us for more details.

How long does it take to setup SATURN?

SATURN can be provisioned quickly, often within 48 hours. Setup and configuration timelines vary from a few days to a few weeks, based on system complexity and data availability.

What are the key steps of SATURN deployment?

Key steps include six standard steps: Server setup, data collection, software configuration, data transfer, testing, and on-boarding. User involvement is mostly based on user preference; it can range from minimal & passive to extensive & active.

How long does it take to transfer data from legacy tools to SATURN?

Transferring data to SATURN is very fast, user-configurable, and easy to customize. Standardized SATURN modern tools enable fast transfer of generation plants & units, loads, contracts, trades, and various other data within hours.

How long does it take to onboard users?

SATURN onboarding is fast and flexible. Sessions are scheduled based on user availability. Basic onboarding takes 1 hour. Most users are fully onboarded within a few hours. 

How do I get started?

Contact Abacus to get started.

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