MOSL names innovation winners

The winners of the first Market Improvement Fund, managed by MOSL, have been chosen to win a share of £703,000 towards projects that will improve the market for retailers, wholesalers and customers.

The fund, which was launched by the market operator in September, welcomed 12 bids to the judging process equalling £1.2 million in requested funding. Bids varied from smart technology installation and data cleansing to water efficiency initiatives.

The seven winners were:

• Leveraging existing underground rainwater assets for large-scale reductions in potable water use

Pennon led the bid to reduce potable water use from a sample of business customers by as much as 25% through intelligent reuse of rainwater held in underground attenuation tanks. The project will install prototype rainwater management systems to tanks to divert non-potable water for business use. Lessons from this pilot could be applied to thousands of business locations across the UK where such tanks are already installed underground.

• Project Looking Glass

OccuTrace led the bid to address the problem of long unread meters (LUMs) by providing MOSL with accurate data on the root causes of LUMS and establish accuracy in the market. This knowledge could help trading parties better understand why meters are not being read across the country and what they can do about it.

• Retailer Wholesaler Group (RWG) branding and design

RWG and South West Water led the bid to increase readership of RWG-produced good practice guides, customer guidance and associated documents by establishing clear brand guidelines and improving the look and feel of documentation.

• Project Déjà Vu Data Enrichment

Precision Water with Everflow led this bid for a pilot project to cleanse and match a selection of core supply points (SPIDs) to their relevant Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN)/Valuation Office Agency (VOA) reference, with an aim to demonstrate benefits such as an increase in the quality of customer address data, allowing for solutions to be addressed quicker, and a reduction of wholesaler-retailer friction following an increase in the accuracy and cleanliness of address data.

• Project AMIDST (Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) data strategic transfer) – a pathfinder to investigate feasibility and benefits of sharing AMI data wholesalers direct to CMOS

Anglian Water with MOSL led this project bid to investigate how AMI meter read data is standardised in the central market operating system (CMOS), by creating an online pathfinder platform that can be used by wholesalers to directly share available AMI data in a standard format, amongst other capabilities. This could decrease barrier-to-entry costs for all trading parties.

• Develop options and recommendations for increasing demand reduction delivery on non-household properties and within the retail market

Thames Water applied for funding to help develop the RWG Water Efficiency sub-group roadmap to ensure it provides a compelling case for change to the regulatory framework. It will explore ways in which customers, retailers and wholesalers can be incentivised to make water efficiency changes which was a core government proposition for creating the retail water market.

• PinPoint

Wheatley together with Bristol Water submitted a bid to enhance the PinPoint app to provide a tool that improves supply point and meter accuracy data, making a central hub accessible to all trading parties. It includes a pilot of Blicker AI technology, which will capture a meter read value and serial number from a photograph.

MOSL’s finance director and project sponsor, Steve Formoy said: “We are really pleased with the quantity and quality of bids we received for the first round of funding. The diversity in the winning bids proves that there is an appetite for change and these projects have the potential to provide significant benefits to the market.”

The next bidding round will take place in March 2022, subject to approval by the independent panel.