MBUNS meaning

MBUNS refers to the contingency channel used by electricity market operators to issue urgent notices and accept limited manual submissions when normal market IT systems are unavailable. In practice, it preserves time‑critical processes (such as bids/offers, nominations, credit cover and settlement timetables) during outages and provides an alternative route for valid market communications. In Ireland and Northern Ireland, MBUNS commonly means the Manual Back‑Up and Urgent Notification System operated in the Single Electricity Market (SEM/I‑SEM) by SEMO (EirGrid/SONI). It is a descriptive operational term found in market codes and procedures (for example, the Trading and Settlement Code and SEMO communications), not a term defined in primary legislation or case law. In England, Wales and Scotland, equivalent business continuity and manual fallback arrangements exist under the Balancing and Settlement Code and National Grid ESO procedures, but the acronym MBUNS is not generally used. Also seen as Manual Backup Notification System, the concept is typically relevant in regulatory compliance, market operations, contractual notice provisions, force majeure and dispute timelines where outage‑period communications need to be recognised as effective.