BMRS approved as the Reporting Service for Great Britain
Ofgem has designated the Balancing Mechanism Reporting Service (BMRS) as the Reporting Service for Great Britain in an open letter on the 4 January 2021.
This was required as a consequence of the Brexit Transition Period ending on 31 January 2020, and would have occurred regardless of the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) outcome.
What does Ofgem’s decision mean?
The legislation introduced by the Government for the end of the Transition Period covering the reporting of market information applies to Great Britain and Northern Ireland and requires System Operators to publish the electricity industry’s data. As BMRS already carries out much of this function for the GB market, Ofgem has agreed that it shall continue to do so.
How will I be impacted?
There has been no impact on BMRS, and Market Participants do not have to do anything differently for BMRS. All European Transparency Regulation (ETR) and Regulation on wholesale Energy Market Integrity and Transparency (REMIT) data will still be published as it is now in GB (ETR data for GB won’t be published by ENTSO-E from 1 January 2021).
If you are registered with Ofgem for trading in GB, or if you are registered with an EU National Regulatory Authority (NRA) in Europe, you will not need to re-register with Ofgem. However, if you intend to trade in the EU once the transition period ends you will need to register with a European NRA. More detail can be found in Ofgem’s open letter published on 13 October 2020, including how it will monitor the market going forward.
ETR and REMIT data
The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020 and entered a transition period until 31 December 2020. During the transition period Market Participants and National Grid ESO reporting requirements under the ETR) and the REMIT remained in place.
Elexon continued to submit ETR data to the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) and make data available to Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER).
Regardless of whether a future partnership agreement was reached between the UK and the EU, when the transition period ended at 23:00 on 31 December 2020, we were no longer required to report to ENTSO-E or ACER.
Background to Ofgem’s decision
We first discussed and agreed this with Ofgem in 2019 in preparation for a potential no-deal Brexit, and again in 2020 ahead of the transition period ending. While we have been aware of the need for such designation for some time, the legislation only gave Ofgem the power to make the designation once the transition period ended.
Next steps
We are continuing to work with Ofgem and National Grid ESO as the FTA is implemented in terms of cooperating with the European Union.