IT Notices: Planned Infrastructure Maintenance on BSC Central Systems
There will be a period of planned downtime on the BSC Central Systems applications from 22:27 (BST) on Saturday 9 July 2022 to 07:45 (BST) on Sunday 10 July 2022. This outage is required for infrastructure maintenance on the BSC Central Systems applications including the Balancing Mechanism Reporting Service (BMRS) and Energy Contract Volume Aggregation Agent (ECVAA). Additionally, the Elexon Portal and PARMS will also not be accessible.
How will I be impacted?
ECVAA
The application and ECVAA Web Service (EWS) will be impacted by the planned downtime and in accordance with the procedures, common submission of Energy Contract Volume Notification (ECVN) and Metered Volume Reallocation Notification (MVRN) to ECVAA will be blocked and the ECVAA Credit Cover Percentage check will also be suspended. Following completion of the outage, the ECVAA Credit Cover Percentage check will be re-enabled and submission of ECVNs and MVRNs will be processed as normal.
BMRS
The Balancing Mechanism Reporting Service (BMRS) will be inaccessible throughout the planned downtime and data updates will be suspended via the BMRS website, API, Data Push and TIBCO services. Following completion of the planned downtime, the BMRS services will become available and the data updates for all impacted settlement periods will be published as part of the normal BMRS recovery.
Portal
Please ensure that you submit any REMIT data outside of the downtime window. Any REMIT data that is submitted to the Portal POST API interface during the downtime window will be lost. In addition, Elexon Portal logins will be disabled during the period of planned downtime.
PARMS
Please ensure that you submit any PARMS data outside of the downtime window. The [email protected] address will be inaccessible throughout the planned downtime.
What will I need to do?
You will need to arrange to submit ECVNs or MVRNs before the start of the BSC Agent Downtime on 09 July 2022; this will include ECVNs/MVRNs for Settlement Periods 46 to 48 (inclusive) for 09 July 2022 and 01 to 15 (inclusive) for 10 July 2022.
Please do this as early as possible to reduce the risk of them missing Submission Deadline. You may also wish to submit contract notifications for Settlement Period 16 on 10 July 2022 before the downtime, as there is only 15 minutes between the end of the downtime and the Submission Deadline for Settlement Period 16.
Will I receive ECVAA reports as normal?
No, the ECVAA Notification Report (ECVAA-I014), scheduled to run at 02:10 (BST) on 10 July 2022 will be suspended. The report will instead be run after the planned downtime at 08:30 (BST).
Will the contents of any of the reports I receive be different?
Yes, the ECVAA Notification Report (ECVAA-I014) for 08:30 (BST) on 10 July 2022 may not contain credit limit and indebtedness information for the affected Settlement Periods. Indebtedness data will be accurately reflected for Settlement Periods for which credit checking first runs in normal mode.
Will there be any further communications about the downtime?
Yes, we will publish a further Circular on 10 July 2022 when the outage is completed.