Aquila Energy and AMDAX — American Direct Access Exchange —plan to tear down the geographic barriers of their two companiesand form an alliance to expand the reach for commercial andindustrial customers using their Web-based auction sites.

Kansas City-based Aquila, a subsidiary of UtiliCorp United,recently established a vendor-neutral, Web-based energy auction bidplatform, YourEnergySource.com (YES), designed to bring togetherenergy buyers and sellers. Most of its markets are in the Midwestand Northeast. Houston-based AMDAX, launched earlier this year,provides similar services to the energy market in the Southwest andwestern part of the United States. Under the agreement signed lastweek, the two Web sites now will hand off customers to each otherwhen geographic boundaries limit their services.

“Energy managers who understand the deregulated marketplace knowthat the ideal situation is to have energy providers bidding fortheir business,” said Eric Rosenblatt, AMDAX CEO. “That’s howcompetition works. Our partnership with YES allows AMDAX to expandour reach, and give our current customers more options to takecontrol of their energy costs.”

Through YES and AMDAX, multiple energy suppliers may compete forenergy contracts of commercial, industrial and governmentcustomers. The proposed contracts, together with the customers’energy usage profiles, will be electronically posted on a secureweb site. Pre-qualified energy suppliers will log onto the systemto review the available contracts and submit their bids.

“Agreements like this will help to break down those geographicbarriers,” said Beth Armstrong, Aquila senior vice president.

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