The energy industry’s independent data operator told Utility Week it has introduced XML file formatting so that new suppliers can access the market while the incumbent players continue to use the same flat-file format which was put in place in 1998 when Electralink was established.
Electralink’s DTS allows suppliers to share data, including supplier switching and meter interoperability, and the new XML launch will mean this process is now compatible with more up-to-date systems outside of the DTS.
“A typical new entrant does not want big data centres, they just want an internet connection and to be able to run everything via the internet,” Electralink’s chief executive Stuart Lacey told Utility Week.
“Gradually over time we expect that even the big suppliers will move to this interface because it is the way the world is going, it’s just difficult to make the transition quickly, but new players do want to make that quickly.”
One of the first users of the new system is yet to be launched energy supplier MyLife Home Energy (MLE).
MLE’s director Danny Stevens told Utility Week that the company had been interested in using the new file format before learning that Electralink were planning to provide it.
Stevens said: “MLE recognise it is important to keep pace with the rapidly changing UK energy supply market and given that MLE wanted a system that was more cohesive with modern applications, it made sense to develop with XML from the start.”
Stevens said that while the move to a more modern system has not cut the costs of investing in a new system, the file validation process is a lot quicker.
“While there are energy supply software products readily available to new market entrants, MLE felt it needed to be in charge of its own systems thus allowing itself to add upgrades and make alterations as the business advanced forward.”
Electralink is just about to complete a two year transformation of the DTS in order for it to be able to handle the influx of data expected due to an increase in suppliers, half-hourly metering for business customers and the roll out of smart meters.
The number of users on the DTS has increased as more independent suppliers enter the market, taking the number to 148 in 2015 from just 14 in 1998 when the system was created. Meanwhile, the move to half-hourly charging in the business energy market in 2017 will also “dramatically” increase the data entering the system by 20 per cent.
In the future the smart meter rollout in the domestic market and the move to next-day switching will increase the data further from 2020 onwards, Electralink said.
Despite this Electralink has reduced the cost of the service to the industry by 3 per cent in 2016, with a 0 per cent rise in data charges guaranteed for 2017.