ECONnergy First Energy Supplier to Complete New York Phase I Electronic Data Interchange Testing

ECONnergy, New York's Largest Independent Energy Supplier has reached an important technological milestone in the competitive supplier industry.

Spring Valley, NY (PRWEB) July 23, 2003 - ECONnergy Energy Co., Inc., one of the largest deregulated Energy Service Companies (ESCOs") in the Northeast, announced that it has become the first Energy Service Company (ESCO) in New York to meet the Public Service Commission's EDI Phase I certification testing requirements for Utility Bill Ready Billing in New York.

Electronic Data Interchange, or, EDI is becoming the new standard for utility-related transactions in New York State, and elsewhere in the country. By creating standards for data communication, it is intended to streamline the communication between utilities and energy providers, lowering cost and resources needed to transact business. Phase I consists of testing syntax between the ESCO and the Public Service Commission staff.

Under the Utility Bill Ready billing model, the ESCO provides its billing charges to the utility via an EDI transaction and the utility company then presents a single bill to a customer, which details the charges for both the ESCO and the utility company.

ECONnergy received formal notice and congratulations for this achievement from John D'Aloia, who heads up EDI testing for the NYS Public Service Commission. DAloia confirmed that ECONnergy has been a proactive user of EDI in New York's retail energy markets since early 2002, when it became one of the first ESCOs in New York to use EDI in support of its retail energy operations."

Though EDI has been in use for some time, the PSC has only recently implemented exacting standards for the transactions. ECONnergys Information Technology group is responsible for the creation and maintenance of EDI for the company.

Though many companies outsource this rigorous process, ECONnergy chose to perform this work in-house. ECONnergy has always strived to be innovators at the forefront of our industrys technology," says David Freitag, ECONnergy's CIO. Mastering business components like this enables us to offer services to consumers that our competitors cant yet offer. This is just another way we set ourselves apart from the other suppliers in the market. "