Home » Industry » Market operation service providers » WITS market operation service provider » WITS functional specifications

WITS functional specifications

The functional specification describes the responsibilities and functions of that part of the 'information system' concerned with the wholesale trading of energy and reserves, and the publication of related information to and from participants and service providers, as described in Part 13 of the Code.

The purpose of the Wholesale Information and Trading System (WITS) is to act as a central facility for the receipt and publication of information between and on behalf of the various parties involved in the wholesale electricity market.

Purchasers and generators send their bids and offers for energy and reserves to WITS, which validates them and sends them to the system operator for use in their scheduling and dispatch process. When the resulting prices and quantities have been calculated, the system operator sends these to WITS for publication to generators and purchasers.

The Pricing Manager sends provisional and final prices to WITS for publication to the market.

The Clearing Manager sends constrained on/off amounts and block settlement differences to WITS for publication to the market. It also sends invoices to WITS for distribution to participants.

WITS itself compiles compliance information and sends it to the Board. It also keeps track of bids and offers throughout the day so that it can publish real-time information and the final bids and offers to the public domain.

Publication involves the downloading of data files and presentation of selected data in graphical format.

WITS is a 24x7 system because bids and offers can be submitted round the clock and information is published at least every 5 minutes. Bids and offers can be revised up to the start of the next trading period (half hour). Bids and offers form part of the supply and demand data required by the system operator to forecast the scheduling of generation and reserves. Schedules are published every half hour. Some participants have developed automated systems to submit and receive information from WITS automatically. As a result, because disruption to the WITS system causes difficulties to all parties involved in the day-to-day running of the electricity market, 13 of the Code requires that backup arrangements are put in place to ensure that alternative submission and publication mechanisms are available.

This page is related to: Retail and Wholesale Market.

Back to top Last updated on 7 March 2012