On 23rd November, we hosted an Energy Theft workshop attended by over seventy participants. The attendees were suppliers, network operators, service providers, emergency responders and citizen representation groups. The day aimed to understand better, mitigate and prevent energy theft in Great Britain.
Working quickly as energy theft is set to increase
As well as potentially causing severe injury or death, energy theft increases the cost of gas and electricity for consumers. Whilst energy theft is not a new problem our analysis shows that rising energy costs correlate with rising energy theft. Unfortunately, we predict that energy theft rates will increase in the coming months due to the increased cost of living and rising energy prices. A different approach is needed, and the workshop aimed to facilitate the collaboration required to deliver meaningful and holistic action. Therefore, we reached out to Capgemini, who helped us create an ‘Accelerated Solution Environment’ (ASE) – a ‘hackathon'-type event aiming to understand problems and develop solutions quickly.
What are the key challenges we face when trying to prevent energy theft?
During the ASE, the participants split into working groups and identified some key challenges that are currently contributing to the energy theft problem in Great Britain. They concluded that:
Siloes and lack of collaboration across the industry prevent us from mitigating energy theft.
There’s a need to educate consumers and the industry to change behaviours and prevent energy theft. We must consider both the method, tone and source of messaging.
The costs and reputational risks of investigation, resolution, and prosecution are currently disincentivising.
There is inadequate data collection and sharing to help us understand and reduce the challenge.
What is the solution to energy theft?
Jon Dixon shared RECCo’s work on reducing energy theft so far. Until now, this has primarily been through the operation of services such as the Energy Theft Tip-Off Service (ETTOS) delivered by Crimestoppers and the accompanying Stay Energy Safe campaign. RECCo also operate the Theft Detection Incentive Scheme. Jon further outlined RECCo’s strategy for energy theft reduction, focusing on prevention, detection and resolution.
We’re happy that the group took many practical steps that could be taken to improve the industry’s collective response to energy theft. The day’s final session brought together the output of several breakout groups - each took a theme and came back with critical actions. The group agreed that the following priorities would have the most impact:
Consumer awareness
Data collection, sharing and insight
Incentives for industry parties
Industry collaboration
Resolution approaches
Theft prevention (“Making it hard to commit theft”)
In conclusion, we agreed to integrate the output of this workshop into our strategy (part of our Forward Work Plan due to be published in January 2023) with specific actions to re-energise the fight against energy theft.
The event was extremely valuable and will significantly impact our actions. As Jon said on the day, “The event has been extremely constructive. Thank you to all attendees for your time and active participation. Particularly to people outside the energy industry who are not incentivised to be here, but are here purely to do the right thing, such as the police and fire brigade.”
Please find out more about our energy theft reduction event here.
Our contribution to the Market-Wide Half-Hourly Settlement (MHHS) programme will be one of our biggest focuses in 2023. It’s vital for the industry – enabling us to move to a more intelligent, flexible energy system. This will act as an enabler for innovative products, services and tariffs and more efficient management of the electricity networks. Ofgem’s analysis projects that the MHHS will bring net benefits for consumers between £1.6bn and £4.5bn from now until 2045.
Where is the programme up to?
We're working with the MHHS Programme to resolve outstanding design issues. The programme has formally entered the Design, Build and Test phase, and have started to impact-assess changes required to REC Services. The team are working to resolve outstanding design issues in the MHHS Design Work Off Plan – they plan to have completed this by the end of January 2023. The completion of this plan will provide a stable design baseline, allowing industry participants to design, build and test their business solutions.
Changes to the Electricity Enquiry Service (EES)
The MHHS Programme will change electricity market data, which must be reflected in the Electricity Enquiry Service (EES). For the MHHS Programme to be successful, the EES will need to be updated in near real-time. This requires moving away from the current overnight batch update process that updates the EES database daily to a system that requires the EES to consume near live updates to data and update the values in the EES.
Our team is considering three technical solutions alongside C&C group, our EES Service Provider. The chosen solution will be the most cost-effective solution for REC Parties. This activity is ongoing and is expected to conclude in February 2023.
Change request CR012 has been approved
RECCo raised change request CR012 to clarify the scope of code drafting required for MHHS. The change request proposed that the scope of the MHHS Cross Code Advisory Group (CCAG) is expanded to include code drafting required for 'consequential change’ that has not been set out in the MHHS design artefacts. This would ensure that parties would only need to review a single set of code drafting and would avoid managing piecemeal change proposals.
We are pleased to report that the change request was approved by the MHHS Programme Steering Group (PSG) on 7th December 2022.
Switch Meter Read Exceptions Workshop
On 7th December 2022, we held a workshop to discuss the impacts and changes required to the Switch Meter Read Exceptions process because of the MHHS. Over 40 participants registered for the event, and we had excellent engagement from attendees on the day.
Thank you to all those who participated in the workshop and provided feedback on potential changes required to the process. The MHHS team will use this feedback to develop detailed solution options and engage further with our stakeholders on the refinement and agreement of these changes.
Consultation on changes to REC DTN messages
On 5th December 2022, the MHHS Programme issued a joint consultation with RECCo on changes required to REC-owned DTN messages for MHHS. Responses are due by 5 pm on 23rd December 2022 and should be sent to both design@mhhsprogramme.co.uk and mhhs@retailenergycode.co.uk. We strongly encourage impacted stakeholders to review and respond to the consultation, so any impacts to your organisation can be considered in the final solution.
New Change Proposals – Changes to the S Number Format for MHHS
The Electricity Supply License requires Suppliers (under SLC 20.4, SLC 31G.8 and SLC 31H.4) to provide the Supply Number to each Consumer on every bill or at least once per year where no invoice has been sent. The REC prescribes the Supply Number format and is detailed in the Energy Market Data Specification.
The current format of the Supply Number includes the following:
a top line consisting of the Profile Class Id, Meter Timeswitch Code (MTC) and Line Loss Factor Class (LLFC) Id; and
a bottom line consisting of the Distributor Id, Unique reference number and Check digit that make up the MPAN.
The MHHS design removes the use of Profile Classes (except legacy non-smart meters), removes MTCs and separates the LLFC Id to create a new Line Loss Factor (LLF) Id and DUoS Tariff Id.
This will impact the format of the Supply Number, which would require Electricity Suppliers to change the number provided to Consumers on their bills and statements.
Following previous consultation and further engagement with industry stakeholders, RECCo has now submitted two Change Proposals to progress changes required to the S Number Format for MHHS.
There is currently no clear consensus on whether the changes required to the S Number Format should be to replace the redundant data items in the ‘top line’ with matching MHHS data items or to remove this entirely.
To aid the assessment of these options, RECCo submitted two Change Proposals (an ‘original’ and an ‘alternative’ Change Proposal), so both options can be assessed, and a recommendation supporting the case for change can be made to the Authority for decision. This will allow the Code Manager to clearly determine the support and rationale for both proposals and for the Authority to consider which of these proposals better facilitates the REC objectives based on this assessment.
These Change Proposals have been accepted by the Code Manager as R0083 (original) and R0083A (alternative) and will now progress through the REC change process.
Want to contact the RECCo MHHS team?
We’ve set up a new mailbox for you to contact our MHHS team with any queries or concerns with the RECCo MHHS project. If you would like to discuss any aspects of the project with us, please get in touch with mhhs@retailenergycode.co.uk, and a team member will respond accordingly.
