IT Notices: Planned Maintenance on BSC Central Systems on 14 May 2021
Every two to three years the Elexon BSC Central Systems require an extended outage to ensure the infrastructure is maintained. We recognise that the outage has an impact on our customers and try to avoid these where possible.
The planned downtime on the BSC Central Systems applications is from 18:57 (BST) Friday 14 May 2021 to 07:15 (BST) on Saturday 15 May 2021. This outage is required for infrastructure maintenance on the BSC Central Systems applications including the Balancing Mechanism Reporting Service (BMRS), Energy Contract Volume Aggregation Agent (ECVAA), Settlement Administration Agent (SAA), Central Data Collection Agent (CDCA) and Central Registration Agent (CRA). Additionally, the Elexon Portal and PARMS will also not be accessible.
How will I be impacted?
BMRS
During the period of planned downtime, the BMRS website will not publish data via the website, the API Data Push services and European Transparency Regulation (ETR) data will not be sent to ENTSO-E Transparency Platform. In addition, users of the TIBCO service will not receive any TIBCO messages via their High Grade Communications Lines.
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.
ECVAA
The ECVAA application and ECVAA Web Service (EWS) will be impacted by the outage 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. ECVAA reports e.g. Notifications Report, Forward Contract Report will resume after 08:00 on Saturday 15 May 2021.
PARMS
Please ensure that you submit any PARMS data outside of the downtime window. Any submission of PARMS data emails to parms.bsccentralservices.com during the downtime window will be blocked.
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 Friday 14 May 2021; this will include ECVNs/MVRNs for Settlement Periods 38 for 14 May 2021 to 15 (inclusive) for 15 May 2021.
Please do this as early as possible to reduce the risk of them missing the Submission Deadline. You may also wish to submit contract notifications for Settlement Period 16 for 15 May 2021 before the downtime, as there is only 15 minutes between the end of the downtime and the Submission Deadline for Settlement Period 16.
What I receive ECVAA report as normal?
No, the ECVAA Notification Report (ECVAA-I014), scheduled to run at 02:10 (BST) will be suspended. The report will instead be run after the outage at 08:00(BST).
The ECVAA Forward Contract Report (ECVAA-I022), scheduled to run at 22:00 (BST) will also be suspended. A single report will instead be run after the outage at 09:00 (BST).
Will the contents of any of the reports I receive be different?
Yes, the ECVAA Notification Report (ECVAA-I014) for Saturday 15 May 2021 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 keep the Elexon Portal updated and will publish a further Circular on Saturday 15 May 2021 when the outage is completed.