Energy System Data toolkit
Every figure in the course, filed the way GB energy data actually moves: from the meter that captures a number, through collection and processing, into settlement, out to publication, and back into the plans that reshape the system. Pick a stage of that journey, or pick a fuel, to find the figure you need.
Figure library
66 of 66 shown- CaptureElectricity
The PAS 1878 architecture: appliance, energy manager and DSR provider
Every arrow in the PAS 1878 and PAS 1879 stack is paired, requests and schedules down, response and device data up, so the interface is two-way at each level, which is what keeps a heat pump's data portable rather than tied to one vendor.
- CaptureElectricity
Import and export are separate meter registers and neither can go negative
A solar home is not one account being netted off: the two registers leave the meter by different arrows, one to a bill and one to a payment, import and export answer to their own MPANs, and neither register ever records a value below zero.
- CaptureBoth fuels
From physical asset to decision input: who handles GB energy data
One path ends at a bill and the other at a grid investment, yet both run under the same regulator strip and the same code strip, landing any change to the shared rulebook on the household and the reinforcement decision at once.
- CaptureBoth fuels
What the GB energy system produces every day, by the numbers
The five indicators do not share a scale, so scale is not one problem: smart meter reads, SCADA points and gas chromatograph readings are engineering loads, while thirteen authoritative data categories and seven industry codes are governance loads no throughput will settle.
- CaptureElectricity
EVs, heat pumps and solar land on the LV network where data is missing
All three arrows land on the LV strip, the one carrying the visibility gap, so chargers, heat pumps and rooftop panels arrive where there is no DNO telemetry on most feeders, and RIIO-ED2 monitoring is closing that gap rather than having closed it.
- CaptureGas
Gas billing is a two-input measurement: volume times calorific value
Only one of the two inputs is measured at the property, so a correct meter reading is still not a correct bill: calorific value comes from a chromatograph at the NTS entry point, and the supplier applies the value published for that zone.
- CaptureElectricity
Six voltage tiers, six data categories: the GB electricity cascade
What happens on the LV tier can only be inferred from the tiers above and below it: five of the six carry a monitored or partial chip, and the one gap falls between the secondary substation and the meter, so the tier nearest the home is the one nobody sees.
- CaptureElectricity
Forty-eight half-hourly readings track a household's day
Every band pairs a reading with a reveals line, tracks the household across the day, and lands on what forty-eight numbers with no name attached still show: wake time, whether anyone was home during the day, and when the always-on load runs.
- CaptureBoth fuels
SMETS1 vs SMETS2: what changed and why migration mattered
The switching row follows from the comms row: SMETS1 comms were supplier proprietary and its HAN was vendor-run, so a switch left the meter dumb, and only the move to the shared DCC connection kept smart functionality through a change of supplier.
- CaptureElectricity
An MPAN encodes market decisions, not just the identity of a meter point
Only the ten-digit unique reference is pure identity. Of the other five, three set how the meter point is settled and charged, the distributor id names the network and the check digit makes typos fail. An MPAN is no plain serial, and the profile class is retiring under MHHS.
- CollectBoth fuels
Four trust zones protect smart meter data from meter to third party
A reading that reaches a third party crosses four zones in sequence, meter and HAN, DCC and WAN, supplier and agents, then the authorised third party, meeting different controls and a different governing rule at each, so no single rule covers it end to end.
- CollectElectricity
Two market designs: single hub vs federated platforms
Every Norwegian actor reaches Elhub in one hop, while the GB panel draws a line between each pair of its five platforms, so GB has ten routes to keep consistent where Norway has four spokes into a single hub.
- CollectBoth fuels
Three WAN paths converge on the DCC backbone for the national smart-meter estate
VMO2 cellular, Arqiva radio mesh and the VWAN broadband fallback arriving in 2026 differ in technology and in the premises they reach, yet all terminate on the DCC backbone, so every read is authorised under SEC Section H whichever path carried it.
- CollectElectricity
Norway's Elhub: one hub, every actor, one hop
Every actor connects to Elhub directly, the TSO and the DSO alongside the supplier, the third party and the consumer, so the self-service view and the regulator's audit view come off the same record rather than from separate copies each party keeps.
- ProcessElectricity
Three GB energy data platforms: legacy backbone, cloud settlement, discovery
Read the governance row across and the three platforms answer to three different regimes. They are not stages of one system; DSI has to discover data that DTS and DIP already hold under codes it does not administer.
- ProcessBoth fuels
Producer, consumer, governing instrument: two worked examples
One instrument governs all three points of the triad: for A1 half-hourly consumption and for D6 SCADA telemetry alike, the governing band spans producer, type and consumer, so the rule that lets a consumer receive a type is the one obliging the producer to send it.
- ProcessBoth fuels
Thirteen categories cover eighty-seven GB energy data types
The type counts on the cards run from three to ten rather than splitting the eighty-seven types evenly across the thirteen categories, making a rule written for one category reach far more of the estate than the same rule written for another.
- ProcessElectricity
The MHHS roles around the DIP replace the legacy agent chain
Every MHHS role card names what it replaces and every spoke runs through the DIP, so this is not six new names for three old ones: messages that used to move between agents now move through one platform.
- ProcessGas
The gas data spine: Xoserve operates UK Link, Gemini and the enquiry service
All three arrows leave the same card, putting the GB supply point register, the balancing system and the industry lookup under one operator, so a change to any of them is a change to one contract rather than a cross-platform negotiation.
- ProcessBoth fuels
One domestic switch traced through the CSS data sequence
Each of the five steps names the dataset it touches, so a switch that goes wrong went wrong in one of five records, and the opening read at the end can only be right if every record before it was right.
- ProcessBoth fuels
CSS, REC and REL: the registration data model behind switching
The stack bottoms out at an address record rather than at a customer, so a switch is only as reliable as the location each meter point resolves to, which is why the callout puts the failure at the address, not at the service.
- SettleElectricity
Seven stages take a half-hour reading from the meter to a bill
You can only name the rulebook and the owner for a missing reading once you have established where it stopped: the owner changes at almost every stage, and the rulebook pill changes five times across the seven.
- SettleElectricity
Trace one reading: 1.47 kWh from meter, through settlement, to bill
One 1.47 kWh reading runs from T+0 to T+30 days while the money line changes at every card, so it is worth nothing at the meter and becomes a charge only once validation, aggregation and the settlement run have each accepted it.
- SettleBoth fuels
Six cost components make up an average domestic dual-fuel bill
Only the top row is the energy itself; the other five run from network charges and policy levies through supplier costs to VAT, each built from a data input and its own rulebook, so most of what a household pays is set by data the household never sees.
- SettleElectricity
Five stages take a generator's energy to the Balancing Mechanism
Only the first stage is commercial; from the Physical Notification onward every artefact is made under a BSC section or the balancing manual, so a private contract becomes a regulated submission the moment it reaches NESO.
- SettleElectricity
SVAA, SAA, FAA: the three BSC settlement agents
Each agent answers to its own BSC section, but its output is the next agent's input, so a volume the SVAA allocates wrongly becomes a charge the SAA raises wrongly and cash the FAA has already moved, which is what the reconciliation runs exist to correct.
- SettleElectricity
The SEG data chain runs from export MPAN through half-hourly data to payment
The chain has no branch around step two, so an installation exporting real energy earns nothing until that export is metered half-hourly: the payment at the end is made against the data, not against the generation.
- SettleElectricity
The settlement run ladder before and after the M16 cutover
The legacy BSC ladder ran seven rungs, with Initial Settlement the second of them at 16 working days; the right ladder carries three, so a supplier sees its position sooner and has fewer chances to correct it, because the runs removed sat between the initial and final views.
- SettleGas
Where Unidentified Gas comes from and how the AUGE allocates it
Nothing in the chain measures Unidentified Gas: four causes drain into a gap defined by subtraction, and the arrow out of it carries weighting factors, so a shipper's share follows an annual methodology rather than a meter.
- SettleElectricity
About 350 grid supply points roll up into the 14 GSP Group regions
A volume can only be reported against one of the 14 GSP Group regions and never against a single grid supply point, however well the handover above is known, because the tiles in the lower band are settlement regions rather than substations.
- SettleElectricity
Settlement outputs feed the TNUoS and DUoS charging statements
The published documents on the right have no input of their own: every arrow traces back to the settlement volumes on the left, so an error in metered volumes reaches next year's tariff table and every DNO charging statement.
- PublishBoth fuels
Three exit branches, one default: the GB energy data triage
Restriction is reached only by answering yes to one of the three questions, and every no path runs down to the open band, so the burden falls on whoever wants to withhold a dataset rather than on whoever asks for it.
- PublishBoth fuels
FAIR principles: four publisher tests for GB energy data
A dataset can be online and still fail FAIR: each principle is written as a test a publisher either passes or fails, and no persistent identifier, no open protocol, no shared vocabulary or no clear licence is enough on its own.
- PublishBoth fuels
Five maturity rungs and the GB energy data gap
The typical 2024 marker sits one rung below the DBP target and two below LTDS Stage 3, so reaching the FAIR-compliant top rung is not a matter of publishing more datasets: it is the catalogue, the access process and the persistent identifiers that are missing.
- PublishElectricity
Half-hourly energy data: lawful basis depends on purpose
The three arrows carry different verbs, so no single rulebook answers the question alone: the framework sets the default granularity, UK GDPR supplies the basis for each purpose, and the consent service records what was chosen.
- PublishBoth fuels
Four UK GDPR Article 6 lawful bases for processing energy data
Data can only be used within the limit paired with its basis, so the choice made at collection fixes what can be done later: consent can be withdrawn, contract reaches only the supply purpose, legal obligation only the mandated scope, legitimate interests can be objected to.
- PublishElectricity
Tariff data goes public in three dated steps, May 2026 to November 2027
The three steps open different things in order, a common format, then prices anyone can read, then a consumer's own tariff shared with services they consent to, so a service built on the first step still cannot see your tariff.
- PublishBoth fuels
Energy system data: the definition Ofgem broadened in October 2024
Before October 2024 the Data Best Practice covered three categories, and those three cross unchanged under the KEPT arrows; planning data, consent records, asset registers and innovation datasets join them, so a dataset out of scope then can be in scope now.
- PublishBoth fuels
Five sensitivity rungs decide who may access each type
Access follows the rung a data type sits on rather than the identity of whoever asks: each rung names its basis before its examples, and moving down the ladder means meeting a stricter basis, not making a stronger case.
- PublishElectricity
Four open GB market data platforms, split by cadence and contract
The Insights Solution, IRIS, the NESO Data Portal and the Carbon Intensity API are all free, so cost decides nothing: what differs is whether you fetch on request or receive on publication, and whether the licence sits on the platform or on each dataset.
- PublishElectricity
REST pull versus IRIS push: who starts each update of open market data
The pull lane sends one request each time while the push lane subscribes once, so the choice is about who holds the timing: a REST pull is only as fresh as your last request, and IRIS push arrives when Elexon publishes.
- PublishBoth fuels
Every major GB energy dataset has one institutional home to find it
Each spoke ends at an institution rather than a dataset, NESO, Elexon, the DCC, RECCo, Xoserve or a network operator, so finding GB energy data starts with naming the custodian, and the strip below shows the access rules are set in one place.
- PublishBoth fuels
GB Energy Smart Data vs Australia CDR Energy: side-by-side regime comparison
Three of the six GB cells describe something still to be set, while the same rows on the Australian side name a live start date, a published API standard and an accreditation list, so the gap is in the machinery of access, not the intent.
- PlanBoth fuels
Five Acts of Parliament set the legal frame for GB energy data
Each row ends at a specific power rather than a principle, so a GB energy data obligation traces back to one of these five Acts, and the two emphasised rows are where the licence and code machinery itself comes from.
- PlanBoth fuels
RIIO funds the digitalisation that network companies must deliver
The revenue allowance is set before any platform exists and the DSAP sits between the two, so the only link between the money and the delivery is the re-opener at the end of the chain, where Ofgem adjusts digitalisation funding against what the plan promised.
- PlanBoth fuels
Seven codes carry GB energy data obligations
The BSC, REC, SEC, GC, DCUSA, CUSC and UNC each name their own administrator and their own data domain, and the footer records that they rarely cross-reference one another, so a change touching two domains has to be raised twice, once under each code.
- PlanBoth fuels
The route through GB energy system data, from meters to certification
Each stage answers one question and hands the next what the pill under the arrow names, so the exam at stage four is asked of the vocabulary, the lifecycle and the judgement together rather than of the last stage alone.
- PlanBoth fuels
Five unresolved tensions shaping GB energy data
Both cards in each row carry their own citation and the arrows pull outward with equal weight, so none of the five is settled by finding the weaker side, and each waits on the policy question named in the band between them.
- PlanBoth fuels
Four code bodies, four platforms: how GB moves energy data
Each row pairs a code with the platform the same body runs, so reaching a different platform means going through a different code body, and the status column reads Live on three rows and a network migration on the fourth, with two of the four still carrying components in build.
- PlanBoth fuels
Six groups, three roles: the GB energy data ecosystem
Five organisations in the framework column set the rules for GB energy data, but the fifteen that operate the system, the four code bodies and the twenty-plus market participants have to carry them, putting a rule in far more hands than the number that wrote it.
- PlanElectricity
The market facilitator sits between the flexibility markets and the asset registers
The same standards arrow rises into both the national and the local market, so an asset registered once can be offered to either, which the per-network registers of today cannot support and the one-stop register is meant to.
- PlanElectricity
Who dispatches the asset: NESO and DSO routes meet the primacy gate
Both routes are valid contracts, so the gate is not correcting an error: the primacy rules pick which instruction proceeds, the other stands down, and the clash itself is written down as data the market can audit later.
- PlanElectricity
Reserve replacement map: STOR, Fast Reserve and the products that replaced them
Two of the three rows are replacements and the third has nothing on its outgoing side, so a provider following these products faced two migrations and one new registration, each of them a change to the data it must submit.
- PlanBoth fuels
GB versus the rest: eight-dimension international comparison
Read the GB column down against Norway, Australia, the EU and the US and two of the eight rows still read in design or in build, so the comparison across the data hub, CDR, consent and CIM rows is about what is in service, not what is intended.
- PlanBoth fuels
The 2030 vision assessed: five outcomes with readiness chips
Every ON TRACK, AT RISK or OFF TRACK chip is paired with a dependency, so the score is really a reading of the programme behind it: the outcome scored OFF TRACK is cross-platform discovery, and the DSI it depends on has not left the design stage.
- PlanBoth fuels
AI and digital twins sit on data foundations: five-layer dependency stack
The dependency arrow points up rather than down, so the decision at the top inherits every weakness in the raw observations at the bottom, and a digital twin or an AI model can be no better than the feature store and the observations beneath it.
- PlanBoth fuels
Seven transformation programmes reshape GB energy data to 2030
Of DIP, MHHS, CCS, DSI, FMAR, Smart Data and CP30, one chip reads live and the rest read in build or in design, and a handful of bodies lead more than one each, so most of the 2030 picture is still a commitment with a date on it.
- PlanBoth fuels
DCF and XTWG: the coordination hub for GB energy digitalisation
All four arrows point into the hub and none come back out, so the coordination function is where the networks, Elexon and the DCC, Ofgem and NESO bring their positions together, and it convenes them rather than directing them.
- PlanBoth fuels
DSAP vs DBP: the two accountability instruments for GB energy data
Both are enforced through the licence but bite in different places: the DSAP is a strategy and action plan refreshed every two years that sets a company's data investments, while the DBP governs every dataset published, so meeting one does not satisfy the other.
- PlanBoth fuels
Five layers govern GB energy digitalisation
Nothing at the top of this stack carries its own authority: the DSAP, the DBP audit and the RIIO re-opener bite only through the licence conditions and the statutory powers below them, so a duty that traces to neither has nothing behind it.
- PlanElectricity
CIM is a four-layer model: vocabulary, profile, exchange, validation
Two parties can both use CIM and still exchange nothing until they agree a profile and pass the same conformity check: a profile is a subset of the UML class vocabulary above it, and an exchange document is one instance of that profile.
- PlanElectricity
Nine LTDS CIM artefact groups extend CGMES for GB distribution
The nine LTDS CIM groups, EQ, SC, GL, SSH, TP, SV, SYSCAP, DL and SCR, split the model between what the network is and what it can carry, so a capacity question has to reach the SYSCAP group and cannot be answered from EQ alone.
- PlanElectricity
LTDS programme: three stages aligned with GC0139
The dots on the axis are not a single go-live: under the May 2026 derogation Stage 2 delivers one future-year LTDS CIM model and Stage 3 the rest, so the first published model arrives while most of the future-year set is still to come.
- PlanElectricity
Clean Power 2030 stands on data: four dependency layers
The policy sits at the top and the network model with the connections evidence at the bottom, and the arrow runs upward, so the 2030 commitments can be evidenced only as far as the publications beneath them allow.
- PlanElectricity
Connections reform: from first-come queue to evidence-gated entry
The REFORM arrow separates a queue ordered by application date from one ordered by evidence, so a project now holds its place only while it keeps producing land rights, planning consent and capex at each annual review.
- PlanBoth fuels
Four planning artefacts shape the GB grid: FES, SSEP, CSNP, RESP
Three of the four artefacts share an owner but not a cadence, running from annual to a five-year cycle, so evidence drawn from them is of different ages, and a regional plan phased from 2026 reads scenarios written on another clock.