In this sponsored post, Gemserv outlines its work to ease navigation through the complex world of the energy industry’s governing codes – and why a smarter approach is required to enable innovators to flourish.
The energy industry’s rules (the Codes) have been widely criticised as reactive, complex, and lacking co-ordination – in short, they are outdated and need to catch up. Action is needed to enable increased competition, facilitate innovation and, ultimately, drive better consumer outcomes.
Over the last two years Gemserv has been on a journey to explore the changes required to help the energy industry’s transformation. We have consulted widely with industry, held ‘innovation forums’ and set out our thoughts in a series of thought-leadership papers.
Through our ongoing engagement, we have developed a digitalisation strategy that includes tools which will streamline the energy industry and improve the experience for the customer. Our Target Operating Model looks forward to a future where a ‘digital toolkit’ will give users easier access to the codes, the ability to request modifications and the ability to risk assess new market entrants, to name a few.
But digital transformation is not linear. We do not need to develop a perfect strategy before we can begin to deliver digital services. Instead, iterative release cycles which follow a “fail fast, learn faster” approach, will promote industry involvement throughout in a continuous process where behaviour change and technology change reinforce each other.
In a digitalised world, solutions can be tested with users quickly by running services in parallel, road-testing new solutions alongside existing services. Iteration helps in testing innovative design concepts, for example prototyping automation, machine learning and AI solutions.
A clear strategy is needed from BEIS and Ofgem to provide clarity for market administrators (such as delegated responsibilities and objectives for code managers) helping to ensure collective efforts towards common market goals.
A new industry self-governance framework should be created to align with this strategic direction, to be faster and more adaptable to address future market change.
We should see the codes as data and a family of applications and focus on how users want to interact with it. The focus is on web design and architecture, centred on open standards, application programming interfaces and cloud-based services. A Market Portal could create smart links to other market web-based services with easy-to-use dashboards and market interactive responsive services.
Our consultations and feedback from our thought leadership papers suggest we can take the first steps now and Gemserv, has taken the initiative to digitalise the Smart Energy Code (see below).
It is the first step in modernising industry governance and to view a demo or to find out more please contact Gemserv.
Dear Energyst reader
It may seem that the codes that govern the energy industry only concern industry insiders and the regulatory departments of major energy companies. That may have been true in the past – but it has to change. If the rules are too complex, too fragmented and too hard to change, it makes evolution of the industry impossible. Gemserv is one of the industry’s code administrators and it is exploring ways to open up codes for users, aggregators, disrupters and all those who want to see the industry evolve.
One step is a series of thought leadership papers produced with Energyst’s sister publication New Power Report. Another is this first digitised code – the Smart Energy Code. To find out more please contact Gemserv and they can provide a demo or talk you through the solution.
Janet Wood, Editor, New Power Report
CodeWorks: Your key to cracking the codes
Gemserv is responding to calls from regulators and industry to update working practices on codes and make them easier to understand with CodeWorks.
We have digitised the Smart Energy Code, the multi-party agreement that sits at the heart of the smart metering rollout. Instead of reading more than 2000 pages of text, CodeWorks users can interact with code documentation, filter for information that is specifically relevant to them and access previous versions of the Code complete with all reasons behind the changes made. This will save time for businesses and regulatory teams, as well as making the Code easier to understand.
To find out more or to get a demo of CodeWorks to see if it may benefit your business, please contact us and we can provide you with a demo or a walkthrough of the tool.
