UK Market-Wide Half Hourly Settlement
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Market-Wide Half Hourly Settlement (MHHS)
The MHHS programme is being implemented by Elexon (About Elexon), the UK agency managing the settlement processes between suppliers, generators and traders of electricity.
The current deadline for completion of the MHHS Programme is October 2026, with the introduction of many new processes and demands on all industry participants, including Network, Metering and Data providers.
The programme objective is to provide actual half-hourly metering data for electricity supplies to all consumers. With an accurate view of energy usage across the UK, the UK Regulator Ofgem hopes to support the development of a smarter, more cost-effective energy system.
The intended benefit being that all parties will receive better billing, settlement, decarbonisation and energy cost saving opportunities, with the ultimate goal to support a transition to a Net Zero future.
Changes and Benefits
At present organisations known as Data Aggregators receive Half-Hourly data (HHD) directly from the meter. The MHHS Programme will change this so that Elexon will receive all Half-Hourly data as a centralised function and deliver the Aggregation services.
The centralisation of this data collection should enable UK power (electricity) producers to better understand the demand required by the Country.
For the consumer, this should enable closer monitoring of power usage and to identify opportunities to use power more efficiently.
Currently the market is divided between Non-Half Hourly (NHH) or Half-Hourly (HH) meters.
Non-Half Hourly and Half-Hourly metering are ways electricity consumption can be accounted for and settled. They’re known as settlement types.
The MHHS Programme will replace NHH and HH settlement types with meter types. These will be Smart meters (SMETS1 or SMETS2) or Advanced meters.
Advanced meters data will continue to be collected by a metering agent appointed by the consumer or the consumers appointed energy supplier.
The MHHS includes a requirement for quicker data collection and should also result in quicker fault fixing by meter operators.
These changes to the settlement timetable by Elexon mean that everything must be done faster, with less opportunity for correction later.
The hope is that this will encourage the data collection agents to improve service quality and deliver better quality of data for consumers.
The improved data accuracy should also open up greater access to smart products, tariffs and include battery storage and electric-vehicles (EV’s).
Although Meter faults and data processing should, in theory; be handled faster there is a risk that settlement errors may fall below the radar and not be addressed.
There will also be updates to invoices, supplier quotations and energy contract with the application of more accurate data.
Change of Technology
The acronyms HH or NHH will be phased out. Business customers who regularly monitor consumption and are used to contracting for consumption will notice this change the most.
There will also be a change to the names of many organisations involved in metering which should clarify their roles for consumers.
The main changes will be to these organisations which you may already be familiar with:
- Meter Operator becomes Metering Services
- Data Collector becomes Data Services
- Data Aggregation becomes Market-wide Data Service
Data and Metering Agent Appointments
Under MHHS suppliers will tell the relevant Registration Service who the appointed agents should be, and then they will notify the Metering and Data service agents.
Currently, suppliers send data flows for all meters directly to the Meter Operators and Data Collectors who then separately update the relevant Registration service.
The MHHS programme will require suppliers to advise the Registration Service who the appointed agents will be. The Registration Service will then notify the Metering and Data agents.
In Conclusion
Once the changes implemented by the MHHS programme have settled in, this should provide a flexible grid for the future, made up of SMETS and Advanced meters across the domestic and business sectors.
Consumers should have more reliable data with which to analyse where power is used and potentially wasted. Having this level of detail can enable consumers to take action to reduce wasted energy, reduce costs and their carbon footprint.
Estimated meter readings will be less apparent on invoices, again bringing cost savings, on the basis that consumers will be paying for the power actually consumed.
However, there will be many new processes and other changes to understand and manage going forward.
To prepare in advance for MHHS you may wish to consider upgrading any NHH meters you currently have within your portfolio to Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) meters.
Should you require assistance in upgrading your NHH meter portfolio please contact your UK appointed energy consultant at NUS Consulting Group or contact us.
More: Market Updates, Electricity, MHHS Programme
