Insights / What are the pros and cons of a multi-layered metering process?

What are the pros and cons of a multi-layered metering process?

Once you have a basic understanding of how metering works, it’s useful to understand the pros and cons of having multiple players participating in a single industry. As a quick reminder, these players include electricity suppliers, meter operators (MOPS), Distribution Network Operators (DNOs) and the Data Collector (DC) and Data Aggregator (DA).

Issues can arise when a supplier doesn’t have an in-house data collection or MOP service, and when they fail to have a robust process and communication plan in place. In such a scenario, the supplier is likely to have neglected to inform the customer about the third party visit (for installing a meter, for example). The result is that the customer refuses to let in the representatives when they arrive.

At Drax Energy Solutions, we minimise these issues by keeping our customers informed and by working with highly reputable and trusted third parties. These collaborations also help to keep costs competitive, because we’re continually negotiating and renegotiating prices with these partners.

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However, some suppliers aren’t as transparent about costs as we are. If you’re a business without a half hourly agent contract, you may also be using a supplier that insists you have a contract with their own agents. This can cost about £700 per annum. Our solution is to scour the market to find the best fit for you, the customer – usually at a cost of about £550.

Flexibility is another benefit of having third party installers separate from suppliers. For example, if there are resource constraints in a particular area, we’re not limited to using just one agent. We can look at engaging another third party – one that does have capacity in that area. This ensures the customer receives attention as quickly as possible rather than experiencing a delay. We’re also supportive of our customers contracting directly with third parties.

What’s more, we have the flexibility – and the system capability – to work with any new third party agent entering the industry, should the customer decide to contract with them. In fact, we are currently directly partnered with multiple third party agents in the industry, so we’re not limited to just one or two options.

The Drax Metering team

Your business might need a new meter if you’ve built or moved into new premises or upgraded existing premises (e.g. by increasing production or otherwise expanding). Whatever the reason, you need one or more new meters because operational changes mean there’ll be a rise in your demand for electricity.

In such cases, Drax Energy Solutions has a dedicated Metering team to manage the process from supply contract to meter point(s). In contrast to other suppliers, we don’t push this out to a third party.

By managing everything in-house and applying a proactive approach to onboarding, we’re able to fully control that process, even with large-scale and complex cases – see the case study below.

Being proactive means engaging with the customer early and regularly. We ask questions such as: “What meter types do you have within your portfolio?” And: “Are you happy for us to engage with the agents you’re working with, and your incumbent supplier?”

Getting the answers and collaborating with other parties in the industry benefits the customer, because it helps us set up their account quickly and efficiently – and as accurately as possible. The third party engagement means we know how many of the meters we’re onboarding provide data, how accurate that data is, and how many outstanding faults are there.

All this ensures we’re well-placed to understand the customer’s portfolio, including any potential or actual issues, before we even get them on supply.

Supermarket vegetable display

Case study: a large supermarket chain in the UK

This renowned supermarket chain – with 900 UK stores served by 13 regional distribution centres – was approaching the end of its supply contracts cycle. This operational scale meant that planning was key to ensuring a smooth and orderly transition between the incumbent and new supplier.

Our Metering and Onboarding teams worked alongside the supermarket chain’s Energy team to validate the site lists, identify priority locations, and agree a monthly invoicing structure. This laid the foundation for a rapid rollout, enabling us to connect 1,220 meters in just four weeks. Beyond the initial rollout, we brought more meters online every week – split between new connections and site additions. Within a few months, the total had reached 1,319.

Our site-specific turnaround times were impressive, too. We completed new connections well within our service level agreement (SLA) of 25 days and were still averaging 5.9 days by the end of the second month. The speed and smooth-running nature of the transition impressed the client, as did our project administration, our ability to process accurate and timely invoices, and to communicate clearly.

“The communication from Drax has been excellent – the whole team understands the challenges we face. The switch from our old supplier means we’ve been able to focus on looking ahead rather than having to help unscramble new connection and invoicing issues.”

Supermarket chain’s energy team consultant

All of this led to saved time for the supermarket chain’s Energy team and to a productive ongoing dialogue. Our Service Relationship team is still managing new connections for the chain’s recently acquired stores, as well as for electric vehicle charging facilities. Given the supermarket’s rapid expansion rate, our effective project management and clear communications continue to provide the foundation for efficiency.

Invoicing accuracy runs at over 99% and the average time for getting new-connection flows to the data management provider is 5.9 days – an improvement of over 75% on the SLA.

Working with the industry

Our Metering team also works closely with internal regulations and compliance colleagues, as well as industry regulators externally (e.g. ELEXON).

We believe it’s important to maintain these relationships, rather than shy away from them, to make sure we understand what changes are on the horizon. This means we get involved in many working groups, both as a whole business and from within the Metering team. Doing so helps us stay in touch with – and influence, to some degree – the industry’s direction of travel. It also ensures we remain compliant in our operations.

We continue to collaborate with the officials responsible for the national roll-out of smart meters. As far as possible, we took on responsibility internally for delivering this programme, and used third party agents to arrange appointments with customers. This blend enabled us to hit our 2023 target of 1269 installations five months early – ending the year with a total of 1839 meters installed.

Given this volume of meter exchanges completed as a supplier, we received no industry target for 2024. Even so, we set an internal target for the year based on our portfolio – and achieved it on 1 June 2024.

What’s next?

For metering enquiries, please get in touch using the button below. If your enquiry involves another team within Drax Energy Solutions, we’ll pass it on.

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