A breakthrough for flexibility provision has been made today, 27 November. Elexon has removed the requirement for consumers to be half-hourly settled before independent aggregators can help them to trade flexibility.
Many consumers with electric vehicles or other smart devices want to provide flexibility. However, until today, this was only possible if their supplier had already moved their household smart meter to half-hourly settlement.
To meet the Clean Power 2030 targets, there is a pressing need to boost the amount of flexibility provided by consumers. Elexon has worked with independent aggregator Axle Energy, which raised the proposal, along with the industry, to make a change to the Balancing and Settlement Code (Modification P483 ‘Enabling Asset Metering for Non-Half Hourly Boundary Metering Systems’), which removes this half-hourly settlement requirement.
Making this change will help around 345,000 consumers to provide flexibility in the period between October 2025 and when all electricity suppliers have completed their migrations to half-hourly settlement in 2027. Half-hourly settlement is a landmark reform to support decarbonisation goals.
Elexon Chief Executive, Peter Stanley, said, “Elexon has worked quickly with Ofgem, Axle Energy and the industry to develop and deliver this change to allow consumers to get the benefits of flexibility provision now, before the full roll out of half-hourly settlement is complete.”
Karl Bach, Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Axle Energy, said: “Axle Energy is helping consumers to provide flexibility using electric vehicles, heat pumps and other smart technology, which in turn assists network operators in keeping supply and demand in balance.
“In any regulated market, rules go out of date and need to be revised. By rewriting them, we can now focus on supporting customers who want to play their part in making the energy system greener, and gaining benefits for doing so.”
Maintaining the accuracy of settlement for energy companies and all consumers following the implementation of P483 is essential. Therefore, any aggregators that want to help consumers provide flexibility will need to ensure that their customers have compliant metering in place at home, which can correctly record the electricity output and usage of the device.
Elexon has been working with Axle Energy and manufacturers of EV chargers and other smart devices to quickly put in place a deviation from one of the metering codes of practice (CoP 11) for the sector.
The two-year deviation from CoP 11 relates to the requirements on electromagnetic compatibility testing for chargers and devices. It allows manufacturers to remain compliant with rules on accurately measuring electricity consumption by the devices, or flows from devices back to the grid, in settlement. Elexon is working to put in place an enduring solution once the deviation period expires.
