Will MHHS Break or Build the Customer Relationship?

Most suppliers are well into the demanding preparations for Market-Wide Half-Hourly Settlement - the industry’s most significant change in decades.

With the migration ‘go-live’ milestone looming in October 2025, the focus has understandably been on delivery: implementing complex technical changes, upgrading systems, and hitting delivery deadlines to avoid compliance risks. 

These include licence breaches and qualification failures that may prevent suppliers from being able to acquire new customers, as well as operational and commercial loss from overpaying for electricity settlements.

But treating MHHS solely as a systems implementation project risks missing its broader strategic impact. As we show below, looking beyond compliance can drive real, material benefits for suppliers, including a ~£70m saving for one of our clients.

MHHS isn’t about faster settlement alone. It fundamentally changes how suppliers interact with customer data, and therefore, with customers themselves.

A new era of insight and responsibility

With MHHS, suppliers will begin receiving half-hourly electricity usage data for customers, opening the door to granular insights, innovative services, and smarter, more responsive business models.

However, while half-hourly data is already mandated for billing and settlement, suppliers still need customer consent to use it for other value-added purposes, like personalised tariffs or energy-saving advice. Without this, many of MHHS’ benefits can’t be realised:

• No bespoke products
• No tailored cost-saving insights
• No real customer engagement uplift

What’s holding it back isn’t the tech. It’s trust.

The risks of energy’s trust gap

The UK energy sector faces an ongoing lack of trust. Industry research has shown:

• 46% of non-smart customers would turn down a smart meter if offered
• 40% also say they don’t trust their energy provider

In addition, the top reasons for customer complaints include:

• Poor customer service
• Inaccurate or confusing bills
• A general perception of being paying more than they should

Unless suppliers address this perception head-on, MHHS risks becoming another regulatory obligation, rather than a transformative opportunity.

Building trust - MHHS can be part of the solution

If approached with the customer in mind, MHHS has the potential to support stronger, more trusted relationships between suppliers and their customers. It creates new opportunities to:

• Improve billing accuracy: More regular, detailed data reduces the need for estimates and helps produce clearer, more accurate bills.
• Offer meaningful, personalised products: We’ve previously seen how customers could have saved £90 annually on time-of-use tariffs, by shifting usage to cheaper periods of the day.
• Support behavioural change: With better education on energy usage and pricing patterns, customers will be empowered to make smarter choices about when they choose to consume electricity.
• Align with sustainability goals: Giving customers the tools to make lower-carbon choices, without adding complexity or cost, supports wider environmental ambitions.

Ultimately, MHHS is more than a technical upgrade. It’s a chance to offer better, more meaningful service - and earn greater trust in return.

MHHS means more than compliance

To realise the potential of MHHS, suppliers will need to think beyond compliance and system upgrades. The customer experience should be embedded into readiness planning from day one.

That means:

• Engaging customers proactively
• Being transparent about how data is used, and the benefits it can unlock
• Demonstrating real improvements in service, not just promises

MHHS has the potential to help suppliers build stronger, more responsive relationships with their customers. But that will only happen if it’s treated as both a technical and customer-facing change.

Those who take both sides seriously will be best placed to lead the way.

Read more on this in our article:  MHHS presents major opportunity to reshape customer energy engagement.

Case Study: ~£70m risk mitigated through our MHHS readiness assessment

We recently partnered with a large energy supplier to identify potential risks in their MHHS delivery plan. Our readiness assessment identified a potential ~£70m annual settlement risk, along with an increase in annual metering costs.

Applying our MHHS readiness assessment across five key areas, we uncovered gaps in planning, team preparedness, and strategic alignment, with practical recommendations to address them.

By moving beyond compliance and focusing on end-to-end readiness, we helped the client strengthen their plan, reduce risk, and build confidence across the organisation.

For more on how you can unlock MHHS’s full strategic potential and reduce risk, contact Kevin Scott or Jon Vincent.