Today the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) published a consultation on proposals for a Baseline Margin Project Performance Adjustment (BMPPA) Scheme to be made under Schedule 1 of Condition 38 of the Smart Meter Communication Licence. The scheme relates to the DCC’s delivery of the Enduring Change of Supplier Arrangements which will replace the existing Transitional Change of Supplier arrangements that are used to secure the processing of Service Requests to transfer control of smart metering devices to the incoming supplier on a CoS event.

The consultation letter and accompanying annexes can be found here.

How can I respond to this consultation?

Please send your responses or any enquiries to smartmetering@beis.gov.uk.

The deadline for responses to this consultation is 5pm on Friday 14 August 2020.

We published an initial draft of the consequential changes that Ofgem’s Switching Programme would have on the SEC in August. Since then, the design of the DCC interfaces has become clearer.

The high-level concept of obligations being removed from Registered Data Providers (RDPs) and placed on the Central Switching Service (CSS) remains unchanged. However, there is now further detail on how this will be accomplished. As such the draft text has been updated to reflect how the DCC will use certificates and other Smart Metering Key Infrastructure (SMKI) provisions. Additionally, a new section on transitional arrangements has been included in Section E ‘Registration Data’ to allow for flexibility over the implementation approach.

The text is still in a draft state, but we welcome any feedback before these documents are included in Ofgem’s Autumn consultation. The file is available to download here, and is also available on the Consequential changes of the Ofgem Switching Programme page of our website. If you have any comments, please send them to us at sec.change@gemserv.com by 25 October 2019.

SECMP0058 ‘Changes to the governance of the Self-Service Interface’ was implemented on 27 June 2019, making amendments to SEC Appendix AH ‘Self Service Interface Access Control Specification’.

The key change was to remove the low-level detail and functional requirements of the Self-Service Interface (SSI) and move these to a new technical specification document titled the ‘SSI Baseline Requirements Document’. This document is maintained by the DCC and is not subject to SEC Section D ‘Modification Process’. Instead, the SEC Panel or a delegated Sub-Committee will approve all changes being made to the document.

This consultation contains a number of proposed improvements to the SSI which have been raised by SEC Parties and are being considered for implementation. DCC is seeking customer views on whether Parties consider the proposed changes to provide benefits to Users beyond those currently provided by the SSI; and whether the proposed changes may have any impacts on Users’ operational processes that should be considered.

The proposed changes to the SSI as well as the response can be found here.

How can I respond to this consultation?

Please send your responses or any enquiries to SSIRemedyImprovements@smartdcc.co.uk by 17:00 on 26 July 2019.

Any questions can also be directed to SSIRemedyImprovements@smartdcc.co.uk.

On the 14th March 2018, the Panel submitted its response to the Consultation on changes to the Smart Energy Code to permit DCC to develop and use a Production Proving Capability issued by BEIS on 14th February 2018.

SEC Parties* can download the response below:

• SEC Panel response to the Consultation on changes to the Smart Energy Code to permit DCC to develop and use a Production Proving Capability

(*Please note that you will need to be logged into the SEC website to open the response.)

SEC Panel Draft Budget 2018 – 2021

During January of each year the SEC Panel prepare and circulate to all Parties a Draft Budget for the next three Regulatory Years.

Over the last three months, the Panel Finance and Contracts sub-group (PFCG) and the SEC Panel have collaboratively prepared and refined the attached Draft Budget covering Regulatory Years 2018/21.

Following SEC Panel approval at their meeting on 8^th December 2017, the SEC Draft Budget 2018 – 2021 has now been published for consultation. The Draft Budget document and a letter inviting SEC Parties to comment can be found below.

How do I respond?

If you wish to respond to this consultation, please provide comments by 5:00pm on Wednesday, 31^st January 2018 to the SECAS Helpdesk (secas@gemserv.com). Please include Draft Budget Response as the subject line of your email.

Following the end of this consultation, the Panel will consider comments from Parties, and amend the Draft Budget in line with any comments, if required.