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Glossary - S
The utilities industry is awash with jargon and apparently meaningless abbreviations. We aim to explain what some of them mean. Please use either the search box (above and left) or the A to Z matrix to the right.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 13 definitions.
- S-Number
- See Supply Number or MPAN
- Settlement charge
- A flat fee to cover the collection of electricity data by the data collector.
- Settlement period
- A half-hour period ending on the hour or half-hour.
- Shipper
- An organisation that contracts with National Grid Transco for the use of network code transportation and storage services.
- Shipper nominated interruptible
- A gas supply that can be interrupted by the shipper to enable it to balance its supply and demand.
- SIM
- A Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) is a removable smart card for mobile phones. SIM cards securely store the service-subscriber key used to identify a mobile phone. The SIM card allows users to change phones by simply removing the SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone.The use of SIM card is mandatory in the GSM world. The equivalent of a SIM in UMTS (3G) is called the Universal Integrated Circuit Card (UICC), whereas the Removable User Identity Module (RUIM) is more popular in CDMA phones.
- Site nomination
- Process by which a shipper informs National Grid Transco it wishes to supply gas to a new customer supply point.
- Smart Meter
- A Smart meter generally refers to a type of advanced meter (usually an electrical meter) that identifies consumption in more detail than a conventional meter; and optionally, but generally, communicates that information via some network back to the local utility for monitoring and billing purposes (telemetering).
- SmartPhone
- A smartphone is a full-featured mobile phone with personal computer like functionality. Most smartphones are camera phones that support full featured email capabilities with the functionality of a complete personal organizer. An important feature of most smartphones is that applications for enhanced data processing and connectivity can be installed on the device.
- SMS
- The Short Message Service (SMS) is a means of sending short messages (of up to 160 characters) to and from mobile phones.