Pawel's MPANMPRN Lifecycle

This is the first step, before any identifier exists. Whoever wants power at a site (a developer, a builder or an individual) asks the local network for a connection and states how much capacity they need. Capacity is measured in kVA (kilovolt-amperes, a measure of electrical load), and getting the size right matters because it drives both the design and the cost.

• If there is no firm build date yet, or the applicant does not yet own the site, the network gives an early budget estimate rather than a full design, so a developer can test feasibility and cost before committing. A formal application follows once the project is real.
• A typical home takes a single-phase supply, standardly fused at 100A, which is about 23 kVA at 230 V. Above roughly 23 kW of after-diversity demand a three-phase supply is provided instead.
• A housing estate is not sized by adding up every plot's peak, because homes rarely peak at the same moment. The network designs to ADMD (after-diversity maximum demand), a standard demand figure per dwelling used to size the shared cables, transformers and substations.
• Larger or unusual connections need more scrutiny. A supply above 69 kVA is metered through a current transformer (CT) rather than whole-current, and any site that will itself generate electricity (solar or battery export, for instance) must supply extra technical detail. Where a generation connection could affect the high-voltage transmission system, the DNO (the local Distribution Network Operator) refers it to NESO (the National Energy System Operator) for a Statement of Works, an assessment of the wider transmission impact.

With the application in, the network works out how to connect the site and what it will cost, then issues a formal connection offer. Two things decided here shape the whole job: where the new supply joins the existing network, and who is allowed to build which parts of it.

• The offer sets the Point of Connection, the spot where the new cable meets the existing network, and splits the work into two cost categories. Extension assets are the wires and equipment serving only this site, and the customer always pays for those. Reinforcement is the upgrading of the wider network needed to carry the extra load, and since the 2023 Access SCR (Ofgem's Significant Code Review of connection charging) most of that is funded by the network rather than the connectee.
• There are two ways to deliver the work. Either the DNO builds everything, or an ICP (Independent Connection Provider, an accredited contractor) builds the network and an IDNO (Independent Distribution Network Operator) adopts and owns it afterwards, which is what "competition in connections" means. The parts that can be opened to competition are contestable works; the parts that must stay with the DNO, such as the final live tie-in to its network, are non-contestable.
• The Access SCR changed the economics for the person connecting. Most demand reinforcement is now free to the connectee, unless the cost is unusually high, at which point a cap of £1,720 per kVA applies and the connectee pays above it. Ordinary connections became cheaper, with the cost of network upgrades spread across all users.

This is where the connection is physically built and switched on. At the end of it there is a live cable at the property, but there is still no meter and no MPAN.

• The construction work (excavation, laying cable and any new substation) is carried out either by the DNO or, on the competition route, by the ICP for the contestable parts. Even then the DNO keeps the non-contestable interface, meaning the final tie-in to its own network.
• The supply is then energised up to the main fuse, known as the cut-out. This is the service head where the network's cable ends and the customer's installation begins, so power is available at that point ready for a meter to be fitted.
• On the competition route the new network is handed to an IDNO under an Adoption Agreement, and the IDNO owns and maintains it from then on. IDNOs usually win new-build estates by paying the developer an "asset value", an upfront sum for the right to own the network and earn its future charges. This is the commercial mirror of the gas iGT model on the other track.

This is the moment the supply point gets its permanent name. Almost everything that follows (registration, metering, settlement, billing and switching) keys off this number. This step sets out what the number is and what it is not.

• The network operator generates the MPAN. Usually that is the regional DNO, the company that owns the local wires. Where an IDNO (an independent network that has adopted a new-build estate) owns the cables, it issues the MPAN instead. The first two digits identify the distributor, so IDNO numbers carry their own prefixes, a quick way to tell that a site sits on an independent network.
• The number is written into the network's registration database, MPAS/MPRS (the Meter Point Administration/Registration Service). At this point it is an unregistered meter point: it exists, but no supplier has taken it on. It also appears automatically in the industry look-up services ECOES (Electricity Central Online Enquiry Service) and the newer EES, which is how a supplier or broker finds a supply point before registering or quoting for it.
• The MPAN identifies the supply point, the physical place electricity is delivered, and not the meter. That is why it stays with the property for life: the meter can be swapped many times and the customer can change supplier repeatedly, but the MPAN never changes. It is the fixed reference everything else attaches to.
• What people casually call the MPAN is really the Supply Number, printed on a bill as two lines. The bottom line, 13 digits, is the MPAN proper (a Distributor Id, a unique reference and a check digit). The top line carries standing data describing how the site is configured and charged. Together they run to 21 digits, and only the top line changes under MHHS; the 13-digit core is untouched.
• That top line is being re-coded under MHHS through industry change REC R0083. The old Meter Timeswitch Code, which described a meter's time-of-use register arrangement, becomes a Standard Settlement Configuration (SSC) Id, and the Line Loss Factor Class Id becomes a DUoS Tariff Id, the code that sets the site's distribution charges. The Profile Class Id, which used to sort domestic and small sites into one of eight consumption "shapes", survives but is set to 00 for migrated sites that no longer need it. The change went live at programme milestone M8 on 22 September 2025.
• A proposal to delete the top line altogether, R0083A, would have brought electricity into line with gas, which has no equivalent standing-data line. Ofgem rejected it because suppliers and third-party intermediaries use that data to quote, and larger non-domestic consumers read the DUoS Tariff Id to see which distribution tariff applies to them.

A brand-new MPAN sits inert until a supplier claims it. Registration is the step that turns a physically connected site into a supply that is billed to a customer and accounted for in the market.

• The customer chooses an electricity supplier, and that supplier registers the MPAN against its own name in the central systems. First registration of a new connection typically takes about 28 days, longer than an ordinary switch because the supply point is new to the market.
• Elexon, the body that runs electricity settlement, is notified that the supply is energised, so the site starts being included in settlement: the daily reconciliation that assigns its energy use to the responsible supplier.
• With that done the supply point moves from new to live, and the thread on this page turns green. From here on it is a fully trading supply: metered, settled and billable.

Once the meter is in and the supply is live, specialist parties keep it metered and feed its usage into settlement, the industry process that works out how much energy each supplier's customers used so the right supplier is charged for the right volume of wholesale energy. MHHS (Market-wide Half-Hourly Settlement) is the programme rebuilding this whole layer. Today most homes are settled on an estimated daily shape; MHHS moves every meter onto its actual half-hourly usage, and the parties below are being reorganised to make that possible.

• In the model being replaced, four parties sit behind the supplier. The MOP (Meter Operator) installs and maintains the physical meter. The DC (Data Collector) retrieves its readings. The DA (Data Aggregator) adds those readings up across all of a supplier's sites and passes the totals into settlement. The MAP (Meter Asset Provider) owns the meter as a financed asset and rents it to the supplier.
• MHHS replaces those job titles with "services", organised by meter type. The metering role (today's MOP/MEM) becomes a Metering Service: MSS (Smart) for smart and traditional meters, MSA (Advanced) for the half-hourly meters used by larger sites. The data-collection role (today's DC) becomes a Data Service in three variants, SDS (Smart), ADS (Advanced) and UMSDS (Unmetered Supplies, for things like street lighting with no meter).
• Aggregation changes the most. Instead of each supplier's DA totalling volumes privately, one central system run by Elexon, the Market-wide Data Service (MDS), does it for the whole market, and the Volume Allocation Service (VAS) assigns those volumes to the right BMUs (Balancing Mechanism Units, the accounting units suppliers settle against). A new role, the Meter Data Retriever (MDR), pulls half-hourly readings from smart meters via the DCC (Data Communications Company, the national system connected to every smart meter). A supplier can run the MDR itself or appoint a third party.
• The change to profiling matters most for ordinary homes. Today a home is not read half-hourly, so settlement assigns it to one of eight Profile Classes, standard usage "shapes" (for example, domestic Economy 7) built years ago from a sample of monitored sites, and assumes the site follows that shape. MHHS drops the profiles. The new Load Shaping Service (LSS) builds shapes from the market's real half-hourly data, and the Processing Service converts each meter's readings into half-hourly values. Every MPAN is then settled on what it used, half-hour by half-hour, through site-specific reconciliation rather than an assumed average.
• Because settlement no longer needs to separate half-hourly from non-half-hourly meters, the old Measurement Classes A–G give way to three Market Segments: Smart-and-traditional, Advanced, and Unmetered. The reference data defining all these codes, formerly Market Domain Data (MDD), becomes Industry Standing Data (ISD).
• Settlement also finishes sooner. Today the full settlement timetable, the sequence of runs that progressively correct estimated volumes to actual ones, takes about 14 months. Under MHHS, Elexon expects that to fall to roughly four months, which reduces the time suppliers carry cash-flow risk on estimated positions. Delivering it means processing up to 500 billion half-hourly readings a year once fully live in May 2027.

Most of a supply point's life is uneventful. It carries on delivering power while ownership, supplier and hardware change around it. None of the events below creates a new MPAN; the same identifier simply passes between parties.

• A change of supplier runs through the Central Switching Service (CSS), the central system that moves a supply point from one supplier to another. It is a five-working-day switch with a 14-day cooling-off period, and a losing supplier can raise a debt-based objection only within tightly defined rules.
• A change of tenancy happens when the occupier changes, for example a house is sold or let. The new occupier falls onto a deemed contract (the supplier's default terms until they choose a tariff), the supply itself does not change, and the incoming occupier does not inherit the previous occupier's debt.
• Meter exchanges, including the smart-meter rollout, replace the physical meter, but the MPAN is unchanged because it names the supply point rather than the meter. When a customer is switched by mistake, the move is reversed under the industry's Erroneous Transfer process, which puts them back with the original supplier as if it had not happened.

The first stage of winding down is a pause rather than an ending. The supply is switched off but the physical connection stays in place, so it can be brought back later without a new connection. This is the amber state on the thread.

• It is arranged through the supplier, and the network physically removes the main fuse so no current can flow. It suits situations like a refurbishment or a property standing empty between occupiers.
• It is fully reversible: because the service cable stays in the ground, the supply can be re-energised later without rebuilding anything.
• Standing charges and meter rental keep running while a supply is de-energised, so if the pause is likely to be long the meter is often removed as well to stop those costs.
• One MHHS-related change affects de-energised sites. Under DCP440, from 1 April 2027 distribution charges (DUoS) will be applied to MHHS-migrated MPANs from the moment real, non-zero consumption is detected, even if the registration still says de-energised. This closes a gap where a site drawing power while wrongly flagged de-energised avoided DUoS, leaving that cost to be spread across everyone else.

Disconnection is the permanent version, and the point of no return on the thread. Where de-energisation pulls the fuse, disconnection physically removes the service cable that joins the property to the network.

• Only the DNO or IDNO that owns the network may carry this out. It is unlawful for anyone else to disconnect a property from the mains, because it means working on live network equipment.
• It is used when a property no longer needs a supply, most commonly before demolition or a major redevelopment.
• There is no quick way back. To restore power to the site afterwards you have to apply for a brand-new connection, which loops right back to the first step at the top of this page and creates a fresh MPAN.

The final step closes the record. Once a supply is permanently disconnected, its identifier is retired and the physical hardware taken away, and the thread on this page ends.

• A disconnected MPAN is retired; because each MPAN is a unique, permanent identifier, a future connection at the same address gets a new one, so there is no risk of old billing or settlement history attaching to it.
• The meter is physically removed, which stops the standing charges and meter rental that would otherwise keep accruing against a dead supply.
• Where a building is being demolished, disconnecting the supply and removing the meter first is legally required, because live cables and meters left in a demolition site are a serious safety hazard.