Market-Wide Half-Hourly Settlement: A Revolution in UK Energy—or Just a Bureaucratic Headache?

For years, the UK’s electricity market has been running on outdated mechanics—an archaic system where most customers, including businesses, are billed on historic usage estimates rather than real-time consumption. Despite the rise of smart meters, dynamic tariffs, and an increasingly flexible grid, the industry has been stuck in the past. And let’s be honest: Ofgem, the regulator responsible for ensuring a fair and efficient market, has not exactly been a beacon of competence when it comes to delivering reforms that work in practice.

Enter Market-Wide Half-Hourly Settlement (MHHS), the latest attempt to drag the energy market into the modern era. In theory, it’s a game-changer—every customer, from SMEs to industrial giants, will be settled based on their actual half-hourly energy usage. The promise? More accurate billing, sharper price signals, and a system that rewards businesses for using electricity when it’s cheapest and greenest.

But will this deliver the savings and efficiencies the industry so desperately needs? Or is this yet another overhyped reform that will shift costs around rather than lower them? If history is any guide, businesses should be sceptical.