XRN 5573
Updates to the Priority Consumer process (as designated by the Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy - BEIS) - Urgent

Summary

Priority Consumers are those that must be prioritised where there is a national gas emergency. Reference to Priority Consumers is mentioned in Uniform Network Code, section Q1.7.1.

Currently there are two categories of Priority Consumers:

• Category A - Institutions providing care for those to be at risk through age, sickness or infirmity e.g. hospitals, convalescent and nursing homes, homes for the elderly or disabled, where gas is the sole means of heating and not on an interruptible contract.  Also, non-domestic consumers providing emergency services, who need to continue to use gas to ensure the safety of human life, where the gas supply is not supplied under an interruptible contract, and where no alternative fuel supply is available.
• Category C - Consumers without an alternative fuel source, who use in the course of their business, major items of plant - defined as plant with a capital replacement value exceeding £50 million, which would be severely damaged without a safe run-down period.

BEIS Secretary of State has issued a letter of direction to the gas transporters to base their priority lists on the following classes of relevant customers:  

• Category A: Relevant customers where a failure in the supply to their premises could put lives at risk.
• Category B: Relevant customers for which the sudden loss of gas causes or threatens to cause serious damage, for an unacceptably prolonged period, to human welfare, the environment or the security of the United Kingdom that cannot be reasonably mitigated.
• Category C: Relevant customers taking over 2 million therms per annum for which the sudden loss of gas would result in repair or replacement costs amounting to 10% or more of the Site Fixed Tangible Asset Value.

The changes look to:

• Replace the obsolete Category B with a new category which permits the protection of sites of significance to national security or whose loss would pose a significant threat to welfare.
• Change Category C from a fixed financial threshold of damage to, damage costs calculated as a percentage of site value. This is relevant for sites over 2 million therms (58,600,000 kWhs) per annum.

Due to the urgency of this change in Priority Consumer criteria, and the introduction of a new category that involves system changes, it has been seen as prudent to split XRN5573 into two parts:

• Part A – Interim manual process for handling the introduction of Category B requests, amending the Proforma for requesting Priority Consumer Sites to reflect the category changes and increasing visibility of the process to industry participants. – Implemented October 2022.
• Part B – Amending the Supply Point Register to accept Category B as an allowable value (including file format amendments for industry consumption) and ensure these values are automatically visible in line with Category A & C. Implementation Date TBC