Half-Hourly Settlement Goes Mainstream: The Data Opportunity for Consultants

Some of the most consequential changes in energy happen quietly, in the plumbing of the market rather than the headlines. Market-wide half-hourly settlement is one such change. As it becomes the standard way electricity consumption is measured and reconciled, it transforms the granularity of data available about how, and when, businesses use power. For consultants prepared to engage with that data, it represents one of the clearest opportunities of the decade.

What Half-Hourly Settlement Actually Changes

Historically, the consumption of smaller sites was estimated using broad profiles rather than measured directly. Half-hourly settlement changes this by reconciling supply against actual consumption in each half-hour period. The practical consequence is profound: suppliers — and the advisors who serve customers — gain a precise, time-stamped picture of demand rather than a smoothed estimate.

From Estimate to Insight

For consultants, the shift from estimated to measured consumption is the difference between guessing and knowing. Half-hourly data reveals the shape of a customer's demand — the peaks, the troughs, the overnight baseload, the weekend patterns. That shape is the raw material for genuine advice: it shows where costs are concentrated and where interventions will actually pay off.

• Spot expensive peaks — identify when a customer draws power at the costliest times and explore shifting it
• Recommend time-of-use tariffs — match customers whose demand is flexible to tariffs that reward off-peak use
• Benchmark performance — compare a site against its own history or against peers to surface inefficiency
• Underpin flexibility — the same data identifies the shiftable load that makes flexibility participation possible

The Skills That Now Pay

This is a moment that rewards a particular kind of consultant: one comfortable reading a demand curve and translating it into plain advice a busy business owner can act on. The technical barrier is lower than it appears — the data is increasingly accessible, and the analytical principles are straightforward. What matters is the willingness to move beyond the renewal quote and engage with how a customer actually consumes energy.

“Price comparison answers one question: what does it cost? Half-hourly data answers a better one: what should we change?”

— CAMB Editorial

A Foundation for the Connected Market

The data infrastructure that half-hourly settlement brings into the mainstream is the same infrastructure that underpins demand flexibility, energy management and time-of-use optimisation. Consultants who build their capability around this data are not chasing a single trend — they are positioning themselves at the centre of a connected market where insight, not just price, is the currency of value.

Key Takeaways

• Half-hourly settlement replaces estimated consumption with precise, time-stamped data
• When a business uses power now carries a price, not just how much it uses
• Half-hourly data enables peak-spotting, time-of-use tariffs, benchmarking and flexibility
• The analytical barrier is lower than it looks — the willingness to engage is what counts
• This data is the shared foundation of flexibility, energy management and the connected market