Meter Point Administration Number - Unmetered Supplies

Unmetered Supplies

It is possible for small predictable supplies to be Unmetered. Typical Unmetered Supplies are Street Lights, Traffic Signals, Signs & Bollards. But can also include Telephone Kiosks, CCTV & Advertising Displays.

For a piece of equipment to be connected to the Distribution Networks via an Unmetered Connection it should not exceed 500watts and operate in a predictable nature and cannot be manually turned on at the end users request, typically the equipment would either be in operation and taking a supply of electricity 24hrs a day or be controlled by a Photocell. A Photocell is most commonly used with Street Lights and is the small dome unit which can be seen on the very top of the lighting column

It is the customer's responsibility to maintain an accurate and up-to-date inventory of Unmetered Supplies, and to inform the UMSO (UnMetered Supplies Operator) of all changes to the connected equipment.

Larger local authorities tend to trade their Unmetered energy on a Half Hourly basis. To do so, they employ a Meter Administrator who will use daily data from a Pecu Array which is then used to calculate the energy consumptions.

A Pecu Array is a device what holds a representative account of the Photocells that Authority uses on their Street Lights or Traffic Signals they operate, there are many different types of Photocell (Electronic Photocell, Timeswitch & Thermal for example) that can be used. By trading energy as Unmetered Half Hourly the Authority will accurately pay for the energy consumed by their declared Unmetered Equipment, and because the data is downloaded daily the Authorities will see their energy invoices change throughout the year to represent the changes in season and daily lighting levels.

Once the daily calculations have been performed by the Meter Administrator the new revised energy consumption are sent to the appointed Data Collector who will in turn provided them to the appoint Electricity Supplier who invoices the Customer for the electricity used.

If however the Unmetered Supplies are being traded as Non Half Hourly the UMSO undertakes the responsibility to calculate an EAC (Estimated Annual Consumption), this is done using a simple formula which takes into account the Circuit Watts of the Equipment and the Annual Hours of Operations.

For example, a piece of equipment that is in use 24hrs per day will have annual hours of 8766. If we say a CCTV Camera is rated at 24 Circuit Watts and operating 24/7 the EAC would be 210.384kWh, the calculation is Circuit Watts x Annual Hours Divided by 1000 = Kilowatt Hours (kWh).

Example 24 x 8766 / 1000 = 210.384kWh, 1kWh is a Unit of Electricity.

If the equipment if Street Lighting the same process is used however the Annual Hours will change as each Photocell is assigned a set number of Annual Hours which indicate how and when the lights turn on & off. These Annual Hours have been set by Elexon and are not locally agreed with the UMSO by the customer.

Once an EAC calculation has taken place an EAC Certificate is provided to the customer's appointed Electricity Supplier for billing, with an electronic copy of the EAC being sent to the appointed Data Collector.

The UMSO does not make a charge to the Unmetered Customer which is why an appointed Supplier invoices for the electricity consumptions, however the DNO (for whom the UMSO is part of) do levy a charge to the electricity supplier for the delivery of the electricity to the customer's Unmetered equipment. These are known as DUoS charges (Distribution Use of System).

The electricity supplier pays a DUoS Charge based on the information held by the Data Collector for settlement purposes.