Participation – Qualifications and Contracts
Note: As part of the recruitment process for trail participants; TRANSITION developed extensive resources, explaining key concepts of flexibility markets to a wide ranging audience. Our plain English explanations are a great resource for those interested in replicating our trials.
We have made the qualification and contractual process as simple as possible and it is explained in the diagram at the bottom of this page. If you have any questions about this process please email us at
How long should it take for the process to be completed so I can enter a market?
Assuming you meet the deadlines set out in the diagram below, the qualification and contractual processes will take approx. 2 months. This is assuming there are no unanticipated delays due to, for example, incomplete or incorrect documents being submitted.
What forms do I need to complete?
There are four key documents that need to be completed for you to be able to qualify and take part in the trials, which are;
- Tender: TRANSITION Invitation To Tender For Company Qualification
- Assets: TRANSITION Asset Qualification Form (for information and not completion).
- Contract: TRANSITION Flexibility Services Agreement
For the purposes of the Trials we updated this document in March 2022 to reflect learnings and feedback. We will share these learnings with the industry, but it should be noted that for standard (non-trial based) Flexibility Services, the industry standard terms and conditions may apply unamended. - Settlement: BACs set up forms A&B
You may find this guide to procurement teams useful – it has been produced by our partner project Local Energy Oxfordshire (LEO).
You can also see our Peer to Peer Term Sheet here.
What do I need to do before completing the documents?
Please could you ensure that you complete our online expression of interest (now closed) form before you complete any of the forms listed above, so we have some basic details of you, your business and assets.
The Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Qualification Form will ask you if you wish to apply for one of the two Market Stimulation Packages so please make sure you take a look at these before completing this form. Market Stimulation Packages will no longer be available as the project has entered trail period 3.
There is guidance provided for completing the documents which you can download here.
If you have any questions, before starting to complete the forms then email us at
What order do I complete the forms/documents in? Can I send them all to you in one go?
Initially please focus just on the first two forms on the above list, which can be downloaded either below or by clicking on their names above.
The first form you will need to send us is the Invitation to tender for customer qualification form.
Only once we notify you that your Invitation to tender for customer qualification has been successful should you then send us the TRANSITION Asset Qualification Form.
We will send you the remaining two documents to complete by email.
Where do I send my documents to?
Please email your documents to .
The one exception is the BACs form A which will go to – we will remind you to do this when we email you the form.
Process deadlines and timescales
The flow diagram below, which can also be downloaded as a PDF explains the process from start to finish.
TIP: You can zoom in on the image below by holding down your Ctrl key and using your mouse wheel to zoom in.
What happens if I want to add or remove an asset/DER from my portfolio?
If you have successfully been through Company Tender and have had your DERs qualified by us, but need to add some new assets (or remove them) then you will just need to submit a new DER Qualification Form. The timeline to do this starts above at ‘Company to complete DER Qualification Form by 30th of the month’. Please allow up to 4 weeks to have these changes to your asset portfolio confirmed.
Using the Neutral Market Facilitator Platform
The trading platform that we are using for the market trials, where you receive information or different markets and return your data is called the Neutral Market Facilitator platform or NMF.
There are Terms & Conditions (Ts&Cs) for using the NMF platform and before using it you will be asked to accept these – use of the platform will only be possible if you accept these Ts&Cs.
You are welcome to review these here before the time comes to access the platform. You will be sent your link and password to the platform as explained in the diagram above.
Basic Market rules
The Basic Market Rules (BMRs) provide guidelines for how anyone involved in a Flexibility Market should behave. They include principles and guidance on how procurement or delivery of flexibility should be managed and how conflicts of need can be managed and resolved.
The BMRs are not contractually binding and do not have any financial obligations but they do provide expectations for good market behaviour.
The delivery of services are managed contractually through the (legally binding) contracts mentioned above.
