A new scheme made under Ofgem’s Balancing and Settlement Code (BSC) – known as Proposal 272 (P272) – will require larger non-domestic sites, with a meter profile class 05 to 08, to be settled on the Half-Hourly (HH) data their Automated Meter Reading (AMR) meters are recording. Where an AMR meter is installed on profile class 05 to 08, this will need to be set up to provide HH readings to suppliers. This will simply improve the accuracy of bills and provide actual data from which businesses will be better able to manage energy use.
Moving from NHH settlement to HH settlement means energy usage will no longer be estimated, meters will be read remotely and billed accordingly. The measurement class of the supply will change depending on the meter type (i.e Current Transformer (CT) meter or Whole Current (WC)) and the Distribution Network Operator (DNO) will agree the supply capacity per MPAN. The default capacity has been set at 71kVA until the relevant DNO has assigned the capacity for the supply.
Following an extension to the deadline, suppliers are currently required to implement P272 by the 1st April 2017. By this date all customers with a meter profile class 05 to 08 and an AMR meter installed will be settled half hourly. This should not require a change of meter in the majority of cases. Suppliers will begin to move meters from NHH settlement to a HH settlement in November 2015 in order to complete this by the industry-wide deadline date.
At the point of migration, supplies will need to have a Meter Operator (MOP) Agreement and Data Aggregator/Data Collector (DA/DC) Contract in place to avoid the supplier applying default charges for these services.
The P272 modification will significantly improve the accuracy of your business electricity bill, as it will be based on actual HH meter readings. Initially it is likely that contracted prices will be affected as these are calculated using the historic data of energy consumption. For HH settled customers, the suppliers will be able to use historical HH data to determine an accurate unit price based on energy consumption and load profile rather than assumptions. P272 may also impact some non-energy charges, mainly the system and network charges TNUoS (Transmission Network Use of System) and DUoS (Distribution Use of System).
From November 2015, the migration will commence. For contracts due for renewal between 5th November 2015 and 1st April 2017, Any profile class 05-08 supplies must be migrated to HH Settlement within 45 days of renewal. Contracts due for renewal after 1st April 2017 will need to be migrated by this date.