BSC Modification P522 Proposes Subsidy-Adjusted Shadow Bid Price for GB Balancing Mechanism Transparency

On 1 October 2026, Zenobe Energy raised BSC Modification P522, which would introduce a calculated subsidy-adjusted Shadow Bid Price to be published alongside the existing submitted Balancing Mechanism (BM) Bid Price, making the effect of support mechanisms on Bid pricing more transparent for comparison and scrutiny purposes.

The Shadow Bid Price would increase transparency around how subsidies affect BM Bid Prices without altering the Bid Price submitted by participants, NESO's dispatch decisions, or BMU Settlement cashflows, enabling industry and regulators to scrutinise subsidy impacts while leaving settlement outcomes unchanged.

P522 is a transparency-only modification that operates independently of the related P462 proposal, which seeks to actually change the treatment of support mechanism value through Settlement. P522 is expected to draw on P462's technical methodology for valuing applicable support mechanisms but stops short of altering settlement cashflows, dispatch, or submitted Bid Prices. Elexon's Initial Written Assessment recommends P522 progress to the Assessment Procedure for consideration by an industry Workgroup, placing the modification on a multi-stage BSC governance timetable running from October 2026 through at least May 2027, when a Final Modification Report is due to be issued to the Authority (Ofgem). This is a design proposal at an early governance stage with no regulatory decision yet taken.

Balancing and Settlement Code (BSC) Modification process

Present Initial Written Assessment to Panel · 8 Oct 2026

Primary sources