Could Project Nexus finally have a reliable ‘go-live’ date? Plans to switch over to the new gas industry settlement system in June 2017 – delayed from April – “look feasible”, industry sources told New Power. Contingency plans could push that back to July.
One source said: “While nothing is ever certain, PwC has undertaken significant analysis and many of the issues have been resolved. I genuinely believe there is good reason to believe the proposed June date is achievable.”
Gareth Evans, director at energy consultancy Waters Wye, said: “A go-live in April would have required a lot of parallel working and I have a lot more confidence in a June date. Having said that, we need to see delivery against the revised plan in the next few months and build a track record of success.” He was less comfortable with the July contingency date, saying if there were problems with achieving go-live in June “one month’s contingence feels very short and we want to avoid the continual minor adjustments to the delivery date that the DCC [Data Communications Company] has had to undertake”.
June would be a relatively benign time for the ‘hard’ switch over to the new system (it is not possible to ‘run-in’ in parallel with the old one) because customer transfers in the business sector tend to take place in the October or April contract rounds, while domestic customer switching is highest in the winter. If there were problems with the new system they would be visible to consumers as problems with switching, as companies would not have usage data, but internally gas companies would have a lot of manual work to do on individual contracts where data had to be updated and corrected.
How fixed is that June date? Market trials finished in September and the next stage is more targeted testing and data transfer, which will take eight to 12 weeks. Industry sources told New Power that a final decision was likely in January.
If June does prove problematic, industry would prefer to see a fixed later date set, rather than aim for a short delay that is then delayed further. That’s because it will be easier to manage and allocate software and implementation teams around a fixed date.

But one industry source said that after such a long gestation it was time for the industry to get ready to implement the system. “I think we need to change our mindsets and focus on what we need to do to make this happen rather than find reasons, excuses, as to what may prevent it,” they said.