DH-330 Reporting an agreement termination

The report of a new sales agreement ends the previous agreement at an accounting point automatically on the day preceding the start of the new agreement. In addition to this it is also possible to report the termination of an agreement to Datahub separately. In these cases, the rule of thumb is that a notification which ends an agreement in Datahub – that is, records the end date of an agreement – is made by the party whose agreement is ending. Datahub will send a notification of the termination of agreement to the other party who will then (in accordance with its own processes) terminate the agreement in its own system and then report this to Datahub using its own termination notification. It is, however, also possible for the supplier of the customer’s new accounting point to report the termination of a customer’s agreement via Datahub, whereupon the termination notification is sent to the accounting point’s DSO which will then end the agreement in Datahub as if the customer had notified the DSO itself that it is moving out.

In a situation where a supplier can no longer operate in the electricity retail market either due to bankruptcy or because the supplier no longer has a balance responsible party, the Datahub operator can terminate all the supplier’s agreements using a bulk process. The process sends the DSO a termination notification for each ended agreement with the reason ‘Delivery ends due to a supplier related reason’. The event also cancels any future agreements of the supplier in question and sends a cancellation notification to the DSO with the reason ‘Cancellation due to a supplier related reason’. The supplier can also report the ending of agreements due to the end of their operation using the normal agreement termination event with the same reason code.

The termination of an agreement is always reported to Datahub using the same termination notification and the reason for termination is given using the reasons set out in the table below.

Reasons for terminating an agreement:

When a supplier receives a notification of grid agreement termination, they must end their own corresponding sales agreement on the same accounting point. When a supplier reports an agreement termination of their own sales agreement to Datahub with reason moving out, the DSO must end their corresponding grid agreement. If the counterpart is expected to terminate its agreement as well, the notifications of agreement terminations can be reported retroactively. This way the terminations can be reported for the same date. For example, if the supplier terminates the sales agreement today with reason move-out, the DSO can send their own notification with the same move-out date retroactively so that the end dates match. If the termination of the agreement reported to Datahub is expecting the termination notification of the other market party, this is notified within seven days after the notification has been received. Information about cancellations is still accepted after this period, but Datahub will take actions if notifications are sent late repeatedly.

If a new agreement reported for an accounting point has terminated the previous sales or grid agreement, the supplier and the DSO can, if necessary, report a separate termination for the previous agreement for the same day on which it was terminated by the new agreement. This prevents the previous agreement from getting restored in a situation where the new agreement is cancelled.

Rules for terminating agreements at an accounting point:

1. When a customer moves out or in the dissolving of an agreement, agreements may be terminated on that day or at a later date.

2. When the reason is termination or delivery ending due to a supplier related reason, the termination of an agreement must be reported no later than 14 days before the date on which the agreement ends.

3. Meter removal can be reported for the current day or at most one month retroactively.

4. The termination of an agreement in any situation may not be reported earlier than 90 days before the date on which the agreement ends.

5. A sales agreement may not be terminated in a way which leaves it valid simultaneously with the upcoming new sales agreement.

6. A customer moving out will automatically cancel all of the customer’s upcoming new sales agreements on the same accounting point, if the customers who are moving out are exactly the same as the customers of the upcoming agreement (as in example 4 in section DH-310 Examples).

7. Agreements may only be terminated or cancelled retroactively in cases of error correction. It is not possible to report separate retroactive agreement endings, except in case of meter removal, but an agreement can end retroactively as a result of a retroactively reported new agreement.

8. Meter removal can be reported for an accounting point only at the instigation of the DSO.

Separate move-in and move-out reports

A move in reported for an accounting point will terminate any possibly existing sales agreement for the accounting point. After this, the current supplier may, however, report a separate move out no later than the day preceding the move in. If the move out is reported for an earlier date than the earlier reported move in, the agreement’s end date will be updated to correspond to the moving out notification. In this case, a period of time not covered by an agreement will remain between the move in reported earlier and the move out reported later. Datahub will notify the DSO of this period. If a separate move out has been reported, the customer that is moving out will not be returned to the current supplier if the new agreement is cancelled.

Situation before move-out notification:

Open

Situation after move-out notification:

Open

Separate move-out notification as part of the customer’s move-in

When a customer moves, the customer can terminate the agreement of the move-out location by reporting it only to the supplier of the move-in location. To allow this, Datahub features an event allowing the supplier of the move-in location to report the customer’s move-out from the move-out location to Datahub. This notification is sent from Datahub to the move-out location’s DSO. It is the responsibility of the move-out location’s DSO to terminate the grid agreement if needed and report this to Datahub in the same way as if the customer would have notified the DSO directly about the move-out. As a result of this process, the notification on agreement termination is sent from Datahub to the supplier of the move-out location. In its notification, the supplier of the move-in location must provide identification information of at least one customer, who has an agreement on the move-out accounting point. To be able to report the customer’s move-out to Datahub, the supplier first needs to report the customer’s new agreement to Datahub. The DSO can contact the customer if the supplier of the move-in location has not reported all of the agreement’s customers. New supplier’s moving out notification cannot be cancelled in Datahub. If a supplier notices that they have erroneously sent the notification they must contact the DSO in question directly.

The customer disputes a sales agreement

When a customer disputes a new sales agreement and the supplier does not agree to cancel or terminate the agreement, the cancellation or termination of the sales agreement must be made possible via a notification from the DSO for the accounting point. However, no functionality for sending notifications of a dispute and for terminating agreements due to dispute exists in Datahub. These situations have to be handled manually. The DSO provides a written notification of a dispute to the Datahub operator who will then cancel the disputed agreement and send this information to the supplier.

A customer dispute of a future agreement cancels the agreement and the balance information, as well as the cancellation of the agreement by the supplier. In case of retroactive customer dispute, the termination of balance information differs from the previously described cancellations of agreements. In this case, the balance information is also affected by whether the disputed agreement has started inside or outside the balance window and whether the customer had an agreement at the accounting point that has ended due to this now disputed agreement. If the disputed agreement has started within the balance window (notice of dispute – 11 days) and the accounting point has a supplier for whom the agreement is restored, the balance information is normally corrected within the balance window between the previous suppliers. If the disputed agreement has started outside the balance window and there is a supplier at the accounting point to whom the agreement is returned, the supplier of the disputed agreement is responsible for the balance information until the balance window is closed. In situations where there is no old supplier at the accounting point to whom the agreement could be returned, the supplier of the disputed agreement is responsible for the balance information until the accounting point gets a new supplier or the DSO disconnects the electricity.

The dispute of an agreement by the market operator is described in more detail in section Datahub operator correction processes.

Accounting points without supplier

Datahub sends a notification of accounting points without supplier to the distribution system operators, so that the DSO can end their own grid agreement or disconnect the accounting point if they want to. The notifications about accounting point without supplier are sent daily. The notification specifies when the accounting point has been left or will be left without a supplier, and when the period without supplier will end, if there is later sales agreement for the accounting point in Datahub. Datahub sends notifications even for short periods without supplier.

Datahub does not send notifications about accounting points without supplier if the sales agreement for the accounting point has ended with reason ‘Delivery ends due to a supplier related reason’ or has been cancelled with reason ‘Cancellation due to a supplier related reason’.