The Funds Administration Agent (FAA) uses the data it receives from the SAA to create Advice Notes (i.e. invoices) which detail the amounts owed to, or by, each BSC Party. The FAA also makes and collects Trading Charge payments from BSC Parties.
Electricity trades between companies need to be notified to the Central Systems, so that these volumes can be factored into the imbalance calculations. The Energy Contract Volume Aggregation Agent (ECVAA) is responsible for collecting information on the volume of all electricity trades made between BSC Parties. This data is provided by Energy Contract Volume Notification Agents (ECVNAs).
For each BSC Party, the ECVAA will add up the total bought and sold, over each Settlement Period, to give a single aggregated contract volume. This volume will be passed to the Settlement Administration Agent (SAA).
Every 30 minutes the ECVAA also checks whether each BSC Party has enough credit cover lodged to cover its Trading Charge debts. If a Party is found not to have enough credit cover then the Party will enter the Credit Default process.
About the BSC Central Services diagram
This is an interactive microsite exploring the processes and applications which related to BSC Central Services (the shaded area of the diagram).
Click on the acronyms to get more information.
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The Settlement Administration Agent (SAA) collects:
•metered volume data from the CDCA and SVAA;
•energy contract volume data from the ECVAA;
•Balancing Mechanism actions from National Grid; and
•Market price data from the MIDP.
It uses this data to calculate the Energy Imbalance Volume of each Trading Party (i.e. the difference between the Party's metered volumes and its contracted volumes). The SAA also calculates System Sell and System Buy prices, which are multiplied by the Energy Imbalance Volumes to calculate the Trading Charge cashflows.
The SAA then passes data on the amounts owed to, or by, each BSC Party to the Funds Administration Agent (FAA).
The role of the SVAA is to aggregate the metered volumes from the UK's 29 million homes and businesses, in order to determine what has been consumed for each supplier's customers. This is done for each half hour of the day.
Much of the data collected will not be Half Hourly (for example, your meter at home may only be read once every three months) but for Settlement purposes the SVAA needs to break this down into a Half Hourly value. To do this, the SVAA applies profiles to the Non Half Hourly data to create Half Hourly volumes.
It then adds up the data to give a total metered volume for each Supplier over each Half Hour of the day. This data is then passed to the Settlement Administration Agent (SAA).
When a Party registers with the BSC, its details will be stored in a database managed by the Central Registration Agent (CRA).
The CRA database holds information such as:
•Party IDs (each Party that signs with the BSC will be given its own unique Party ID);
•Party roles (for example, Supplier or Generator);
•Authorised Signatories (these are the people who are allowed to submit BSC forms on behalf of a BSC Party); and
•Balancing Mechanism Units (these are the generation or demand units against which metered volumes are stored in the central systems).
The Balancing Mechanism Reporting Agent (BMRA) publishes Balancing Mechanism data. You can find this data on the BMRA website in the following location: www.bmreports.com
The website provides a wide range of data including:
•Generation by fuel type data
•Bid Offer data
•Indicative system prices
•System frequency data
The Central Data Collection Agent (CDCA) collects metered volumes from power stations and large industrial consumers. It collects this data by polling the meters of these units via telephone lines.
The collected metered volumes are passed to the Settlement Administration Agent (SAA).
Electricity cannot easily be stored, therefore, the amount of energy being generated needs to exactly match the amount being consumed. The Balancing Mechanism, managed by National Grid, is responsible for this. The Balancing Mechanism can instruct market participants to increase or decrease generation and/or demand.
Information on the actions that the Balancing Mechanism takes to balance the system will be passed to the Settlement Administration Agent (SAA), for use in the Settlement calculations.
Whenever a BSC Party buys or sells electricity, the amount that has been traded needs to be notified to the Central Systems by an Energy Contract Volume Notification Agent (ECVNA).
An ECVNA acts on behalf of two BSC Parties that have entered into a contract with each other. The Agent must be Authorised within the Central Systems to submit notifications. This minimises the potential for malicious or erroneous notifications to be made by an agent.
An outstation is where the meter for a power station or large industrial customer is located. Metered volume data is retrieved from these outstations by the Central Data Collection Agent (CDCA).
Participant Systems are the systems owned and operated by Market Participants which interact with the Central Systems, either by sending data to the Central Systems or receiving data from them. For example, a participant may use their systems to submit Physical Notifications to the Balancing Mechanism.
Note, a physical notification notifies the Balancing Mechanism of a Market Participants planned operating levels, for example, the amount that a participant is planning to generate at one of its power stations. This information will be used by the Balancing Mechanism to help it balance the system.
Electricity market participants can purchase energy directly from each other or through the UK's power exchanges. The SAA uses data on the costs and volumes of contracts traded through the power exchanges in the Energy Imbalance Price calculation.
This data is called Market Index Data and power exchanges are classed as Market Index Data Providers (MIDPs).
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A power exchange is a platform through which market participants can purchase and sell electricity. There are currently two power exchanges operating in the UK.
Information on the price and volumes of contracts traded through the power exchanges is used by the Central Systems in the calculation of Energy Imbalance Prices. The price and volume data is known as Market Index Data and the power exchanges are classed as Market Index Data Providers (MIDPs).
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