Katie Taaffe
After graduating as a systems engineer, I joined BT for many years as a design engineer in Networks and Strategy, amongst other roles. Eventually, after a short stint as a maths teacher, I moved to Ofgem, initially leading the cost assessment team for offshore wind farms and onshore transmission projects, and then on to making legal determination decisions for consumers who were in dispute with energy companies. I moved to RECCo from Smart DCC in July, where I was in the Regulatory department with a specific focus on economic regulation and incentives. RECCo seemed the perfect place to utilise my skills from both the data and energy sectors!
I am the Energy Enquiry Services Manager, looking after the core REC energy data systems (EES and SDEP, GES and the GDCC). My role involves facilitating the smooth transition of EES and GES into the enduring new switching arrangements, and ensuring that the stakeholders within the retail energy market are provided with the best possible service when interacting with the REC data systems through working collaboratively with the respective service providers. This involves monitoring service provider performance, overseeing opportunities to further enhance and evolve the services and ensuring the services are available and working as expected.
Over the next 6 months my priority is to gain a deep understanding of the EES and GES, so that we can decide how to improve services and reduce costs to ensure stakeholders get what they need from the services over the coming years. This will also involve working with Pete Davies our newly appointed Director of Data, Technology and Transformation, others in RECCo, and industry parties to understand the potential future uses of the data we currently hold in these systems, and whether there is scope to combine this data with other data sources to create innovative services that will benefit consumers. In addition, we intend to re-procure the EES and GES in 3 years, with a view to potentially look at the cost looking at the benefits case of consolidating the data into one service to improve the user experience and reduce costs.
There are a number of ways stakeholders can keep informed with the day-to-day running of the REC services. The REC Code Manager is responsible for sharing key updates with REC Parties through their communication channels such as the weekly REC bulletins. The REC Portal also has useful information relating to the REC services, from the dedicated wiki pages to the service definition documents within the REC Document section of the portal. RECCo also issues a regular newsletter where we provide a monthly summary of latest information on the services including upcoming changes to the platforms or planned service outages. For any upcoming projects in relation to the services, such as the re-procurement of EES and GES, we will engage directly with stakeholders as the work progresses, including issuing consultations as required to enable REC Parties and other users to provide us with their requirements and opinions.
I live in Waltham Forest (London) next to Epping Forest. I live with my partner and we have two grown-up children who are at university. I am a keen cyclist and kayaker, and I enjoy active weekends in Britain and France. I am also a qualified Spinning Instructor (that’s indoor cycling!) and I teach classes in various gyms in central and east London.
