Electricity settlement – moving to half hourly settlement
Guidance
Publication date
Industry sector
Supply and Retail Market
The electricity settlement process places incentives on suppliers to buy energy to meet their customers’ demand in each half hour of the day.
At present, most consumers do not have meters capable of recording half-hourly consumption data. Instead, they are settled using estimates of their usage in each half hour.
The roll-out of smart and advanced meters that can record half-hourly consumption and be remotely read presents an opportunity to improve the accuracy and timeliness of the settlement process. As part of our Smarter Markets Programme, we're leading a project to realise this opportunity.
Following a period of scoping, we consider that it's in consumers’ interests to be settled against their half-hourly consumption data. In this document, we explain our reasoning and set out our plans for examining how this could be achieved through the settlement project.