Decisioning and Confirming Bids

Once the bidding window (competition close deadline) has closed, a system operator (SO) will be able to view the received bids. The topics within this article will go through how to:

View competition bids
Decision bids (this is the process of deciding the competition results)
Confirm results (this is the process of finalising and submitting the competition results)

Competition Results

To view the received bids for a competition round, navigate to Manage > Competition Results > Confirm Results. Any competition that received zero bids will not be visible here as there are no further actions required. You will be able to view a summary of the following data points per competition:

Number of bidders
Number of bids still requiring a decision
Number of accepted bids
Number of rejected bids
Confirmed? [Yes / No]

Additional bid details such as offered capacity, availability and utilisation prices, and maximum runtime offered per bid can be viewed by selecting the ‘View’ button to the right hand side of each competition.

To download a file with all of the bids from all active competitions (does not include archived competitions) select the file download button which can be located in the top right hand corner of the page.

This page can be used to easily see which competition still has decisions outstanding and which competitions still need to be confirmed. Please note that once a competition is archived, it will automatically be removed from this table and the unconfirmed bids file.

Decisioning Bids

Decisioning bids is the process of confirming the competition results and either accepting or rejecting each bid that has been received. There are two ways to decision bids; either in bulk using the file upload functionality, or on the platform one competition at a time.

Decisioning bids by file

Go to Manage > Competition results > Bulk decision bids
Download the file by selecting the button labelled ‘Download unconfirmed bids’ (this file is also available via Manage > Competition results > Confirm results).
All of the bids which have been received can be found in the ‘Bids’ tab. Analyse the bids for each competition in this file and set the decisions for each in the 'Decision Details' columns at the end of the file (columns AG and AH).
Rejected bids must be accompanied by a reason (fixed inputs are detailed in the 'README' tab)
Once completed, upload the file through the 'Bulk decision bids' page to submit the results. Please ensure when typing in ‘Accept or Reject’ that the first letter is capitalised.
Once the file has uploaded successfully, the decisions can be reviewed via the table on Manage > Confirm results

Decisioning bids per competition on the platform

Go to Manage > Competition results > Confirm results
To decision the bids of a competition, click on the “View” button on the far right of each competition row
Each bid for this competition can be seen here. Under the “Response” column there is the option to click either ‘Accept’ or ‘Reject’. Choose your response. Remember that rejections must be accompanied by a reason
The platform will save the response, so please feel free to exit the competition and leave the response as a ‘draft’ until ready to confirm the bid (details on how to do this are below)

Confirming Bids

Confirming bids is the final step to conclude the competition results. When the confirmations are made, the decisions are unable to be amended and flexible service providers (FSPs) will be notified. There are two ways to confirm bids, either confirm all of the decisioned bids in bulk, or one by one per competition. Please see details on each method below.

Bulk confirm

Go to Manage > Competition results > Confirm results
Check the bids and decisions are correct
Click on the button at the bottom of the page titled ‘Confirm bids’ once ready to confirm all of the bids
A pop up appears, please read through this and confirm when ready
FSPs will be notified via email on the day of confirmation (at 19:00 UTC). In addition, a summary notification will also be sent to the SO.

Confirm each competition individually on the platform

Go to Manage > Competition results > Confirm results
Click on the ‘View’ button found on the far right side of each competition row
Check the bids and decisions are correct
At the bottom of the page there is a tick box labelled “I acknowledge once confirmed, competition results are final and cannot be amended”. Tick this box and click confirm when ready.
Flex service providers will be notified via email on the day of confirmation (at 19:00 UTC). In addition, a summary notification will also be sent to the SO.

View Results

Competition Results can be downloaded by file by going to Manage > Competition results > View results and clicking “Download”. This file will show all competition results (both won and lost bids).

An additional place to check competition results is to go to Manage > Contracts, where a file can be downloaded that contains information about successful bids.

Manage the Bidding Process via API

Piclo is developing a suite of APIs for both FSPs and SOs. For anyone interested in managing the bidding process via API, you can view our API documentation. Please feel free to contact us to ask for more information at support@piclo.energy.