What are Settlement Charges?
Also known as ‘pass through’ charges, these are charges set by the local Distribution Network Operator (DNO). They include Available Capacity, Excess Available Capacity and Reactive Power charges.
What is Maximum Demand?
Maximum Demand is a business’s peak demand of electricity at any half-hour period.
What is Available Capacity?
If you have HH electricity meters, Available Capacity (also referred to as Av Cap or Available Supply Capacity) can make up a significant proportion of your electricity costs.
Measured in kVA, the Available Capacity is used to increase the Maximum Demand and is essentially the amount of electricity the local DNO is required to make available to your site at any one time. This is paid indirectly to the DNO via your energy bill and you will be charged whether or not you require it. Amendments can only be agreed directly with the DNO, where possible.
What happens if we use more than the available capacity?
You may be charged for exceeding your Available Supply Capacity if you have expanded a site’s function without asking for the Available Supply Capacity to be increased. These penalties are referred to as ‘Excess Capacity’ charges and can rack up significantly over time.
The DNO will inform us every month of the available capacity agreed, and any excess charge to apply.
What is the Data Collector Transactional charge?
This covers charges for services arranged by a contracted Data Collector that we must retain. It ensures those services are provided to us in a timely and secure manner.
What is the Meter Operator Umbrella Charge?
This covers charges to ensure any meter operator contracted directly, delivers services to us in a timely and secure manner. This includes repairs to faults, provision of enquiries, provision of meter technical details, performance assurance reporting and meter proving tests. To cover our liabilities, we put a contract in place with the direct meter operator which this charge covers.
What are Triads?
Triads are the three half hour periods of peak power demand across the national grid in a year (from November to February). These three readings are averaged then used to calibrate the system costs, which are passed onto the industry.
What is a Transmission Network Use of Systems (TNUoS)/Triad Interim Payment?
Although TNUoS/Triad Reconciliation is based on peak demand periods from the winter months, November to February, a Triad year runs from April to March.
As a result, the customer’s monthly invoices from April to February will recover a Triad Interim payment. This is a monthly contribution (advanced payment) towards the reconciliation that will take place with the March invoice.
What is the direct debit discount policy for HH meters?
Our direct debit policy is applied to both HH and NHH metered contracts. Without a direct debit in place, you will not be able to take advantage of our discounted energy contract prices, and if you later cancel your direct debit the prices will increase by 0.5p/kWh.