Electricity information exchange protocols
Regular and/or large volumes of information can be efficiently exchanged between industry participants using the electricity information exchange protocols through the Electricity registry file transfer hub.
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About information exchange protocols
Electricity information exchange protocols (EIEPs) facilitate the regular or large volume exchange of electricity information between traders and distributors, and between retailers and third-party providers. There are 14 EIEPs which are either regulated or non-regulated:
- Regulated EIEPs are mandatory under Schedule 12A.2 of the Code. They are EIEPs 1, 2, 3, 5A, 12, and 13.
- Non-regulated EIEPs are voluntary, they include EIEPs 4, 5B, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 14.
Participants can securely transfer information covered by EIEPs to other participants using the Electricity registry. See the Electricity registry’s EIEP exchange hub secure file transfer protocol (SFTP).
Any industry participant can propose a change to the formats or principles of EIEPs by submitting a change proposal form.
Regulated EIEPs
We develop regulated EIEPs after consultation with industry participants and the Standing Data Formats Group. Here is information on each regulated EIEP.
EIEP1 Detailed ICP billing and volume information
EIEP1 allows:
- Traders to provide billing and volume information to distributors at an ICP level to enable distributors to invoice fixed and variable network charges, meet the distributor’s network planning, pricing design, and regulatory information disclosure reporting requirements, and provide information to the extended reserve manager. If the distributor requires billing and volume information:
- for MM ICPs, traders must provide EIEP1 ‘replacement RM normalised’ files for networks with interposed and conveyance arrangements
- for HHR ICPs, traders must provide EIEP1 ‘as billed’ files.
- Distributors to provide billing and volume information to traders to support their invoices for network charges, and to enable traders to reconcile the network charges at a detailed level.
(EIEP2 effective from 1 November 2014.)
EIEP2 Aggregated billing and volume information
EIEP2 allows:
- Traders to provide aggregated EIEP1 billing and volume information to distributors.
- Distributors to provide aggregated information to traders that supports the distributor’s invoice and enables reconciliation of the distributor’s network charges covered by the file.
(EIEP2 effective from 1 November 2014.)
EIEP3 Half hour metering information
EIEP3 allows:
- Traders to provide half hour metering information to distributors at an ICP level to enable distributors to invoice traders for fixed and variable network charges associated with ICPs where half hour metering information is required. This meets the distributor’s network planning, pricing design, and regulatory information disclosure requirements, and provides information to the extended reserve manager.
- Embedded network owners to provide half hour metering information to the parent network owner for LE (embedded network gateway) ICPs.
(EIEP3 effective from 1 November 2014.)
EIEP5A Planned service interruptions
EIEP5A allows distributors to provide planned service interruption information to traders. This enables traders to record details in their customer information systems and notify affected customers, where required, to do so by the relevant use of system agreement.
EIEP5A v11.1 is current until 31 March 2024.
EIEP5A v11.2 is mandatory from 1 April 2024.
EIEP12 Delivery price change notification
EIEP12 applies when a distributor, who does not send accounts for network services to consumers directly, notifies traders of changes to its delivery prices. This includes by introducing or removing one or more delivery prices, for ICPs which have category 1 or 2 metering installations.
Distributors are required to provide EIEP12 to the Electricity Authority.
(EIEP12 effective from 1 December 2011.)
EIEP13A Detailed consumption information
EIEP13A allows retailers to provide detailed electricity consumption information to consumers or their authorised agents.
Retailers will provide detailed half hour consumption information, as well as a consumer’s non-half hour consumption information, where this information has been used by the retailer to either calculate the amount of electricity consumed by the consumer at each ICP or provide any service to the consumer.
(EIEP13C effective from 1 March 2020.)
EIEP13B Summary consumption information
EIEP13B allows retailers to provide summary consumption information to consumers or their authorised agents.
Retailers will provide the consumer’s billed consumption information that the retailer has supplied to the consumer (summarised non-half hour consumption information).
(EIEP13C effective from 1 March 2020.)
EIEP13C Electronic request format for EIEP 13A or EIEP 13B
EIEP13C allows a consumer’s authorised agent to request consumption information from a retailer.
The agent may request consumption information for consumers and formatted using either or both EIEP13A and EIEP13B.
(EIEP13C effective from 1 March 2020.)
Non-regulated EIEPs
Non-regulated EIEPs are agreed between industry participants, retailers and third-party providers.
Non-regulated EIEPs may be adopted in contracts between traders and distributors (normally use of system agreements), and between retailers and field services providers. These EIEPs may vary in the information that they contain depending on arrangements between the parties or as their systems may dictate.
EIEP4 Customer information
EIEP4 allows traders to provide customer information to distributors, as a snapshot or incremental file.
Incremental customer detail changes will result in a triggered report to be sent to the distributor.
EIEP5B Unplanned service interruptions
EIEP5B allows distributors to provide information to traders for unplanned service interruptions.
EIEP6 Fault notification and service requests
EIEP6 is comprised of EIEP6A and EIEP6B which may be used for exchange of information between traders and distributors for network related customer faults. Also by traders and their field services providers for non-network related customer faults and service requests.
- EIEP6A: may be used by traders for reporting network related customer faults to distributors, and by distributors for communicating status updates and closure to traders.
- EIEP6B: may be used by traders for reporting non-network related customer faults and service requests to their field services providers (who in some cases may also be the distributor), and by field services providers for communicating status updates and closure information to traders.
EIEP7 General installation status change
EIEP7 allows traders to provide information to distributors relating to changes in the connection status of installations.
The most common application will relate to disconnections and reconnections. However, there are other installation changes that may be applied to this file format.
EIEP8 Price category changes
EIEP8 allows:
- traders to notify distributors of price category changes
- distributors to reject price category changes notified by a trader where it considers the notified change is invalid.
EIEP9 ICP physical address change notification
EIEP9 allows:
- traders to notify distributors of changes to the ICP physical address of installations
- distributors to review the information and make changes to their connection database and registry if appropriate.
EIEP11 New connection information
EIEP11 allows:
- traders to request new ICPs or livening of new ICPs from a distributor or their agent
- distributors to advise traders of new ICP creation.
EIEP14 Retailer tariff rate notification
EIEP14 sets out the protocol that a retailer may use when responding to a request from a third-party service provider that requests the retailer’s generally available tariff plans.
Key documents
All EIEPs should be read in conjunction with the following two documents:
Electricity registry
Use the registry for secure information exchange, reconciliation, invoicing and consumer switching.