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“Firms can game the system – with a rubbish website”
Finding comfort in consistency is definitely more difficult when it comes to utilities’ apparent aversion to transparency. But at least we know what to expect. Apparently obfuscation doesn’t start or end with confusing consumer tariffs and opaque profit reporting. On every possible count, energy companies seem to find a way to offer the least transparent transparency they can get away with.
So it is in the energy markets. Ofgem’s ever-searching spotlight for areas needing clarity took a shine to the disclosure of “inside information” this week. The very idea of insider trading brings to mind a little cloak and dagger subterfuge, back room whisperings… a far cry from the simple way power generators can, and often do, game the system: have a rubbish website.
The rules are simple enough: let the market know what you know before you use that information to trade. But if your “transparency webpage” is useless enough, the competition won’t be any the wiser when you snap up some power volume bargains after your CCGT has quietly dropped off-line.
So how bad are these websites? Well, UK power traders have told me that even the efforts of Bloomberg and Reuters to create online aggregators have failed to result in something user-friendly.
Small wonder, then, that some young traders have begun moonlighting as web developers to create their own transparency sites which, for now at least, can be found via Google for free.
The truth is out there – but you have to search for it.
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