Overview for System Operators

The following Instructions take you through the general overview of how system operators (SOs) can use the Piclo Flex marketplace to procure DSO flexibility services.  

Setup

New SOs will need to have their account set up before starting to procure flexibility using Piclo Flex. Details of this process can be found within system operator registration. 

Once the account has been set up, any team members who will require a login for the SO account can have their logins created.

Piclo Support

Piclo offers a variety of support to SOs once they have been set up and are preparing to launch a competition round. Find out about the support offered in the below articles:

• Piclo Support
• DSO Profile Page

Create Competitions

To create and launch competitions, follow the below steps::

1. If being used, set up the DPS/Company qualification
2. Set up the competition boundaries using either GeoPackages or via the competition file 
3. Download the latest competition file from Manage > Competitions. Support on how to use this file can be found in the Adding and Managing Competitions. 

Qualification

Piclo will automatically qualify assets that match the criteria set out in the competitions. This criteria is detailed within the  Qualification Process article with the Automatic Technical Qualification section. However, it is possible for SOs to additionally qualify or disqualify assets:

• During the qualification period, SOs can view details of all qualified assets in the qualified assets file, found within Manage > Qualified assets 
• SOs can view which flexible service providers with qualified assets are intending to take part in an upcoming competition round with the competition qualification stage of the qualification process

The Qualification Process article details additional information on the qualification steps, including the override process to qualify or disqualify assets. 

Bids

Once the competitions have closed, SOs can view and access all bids received. 

1. To view the received bids for a competition round, navigate to Manage > Competition results > Confirm results
2. Decision and confirm bids either within the interface or via a file. When ready to complete this, follow the guidelines herein decisioning and confirming bids and bid management process.

Bid Results

When competitions have been confirmed, all accepted bids will automatically be available to download from the ‘Contracts’ area of the platform. All bids and their results can be downloaded in the competition results file by going to Manage > Competition results > View results. Navigate to Manage > Contracts to download the contractual obligations file, which will only include accepted bids. 

Operations and Settlement

We are developing our operations and settlement solution which will include retrieving asset availability, receiving dispatch messages, performance report creation (using baseline, utilisation and meter data) and creation of invoice data.  If you are interested in finding out more about these features, please do contact us.