Introducing Empire 8.0

Launching in June 2026, Empire 8.0 is the latest release of BritNed’s auction and nomination platform.

Empire 8.0 has been engineered to deliver subtle, yet powerful refinements throughout the platform, whilst focusing on enhancing the GUI (graphic user interface) and improving the user access experience.

• Session times / auto logout times have been extended
• API keys are decoupled from password expiry and will expire after one year
• The Aggregated Nominations Overview provides a breakdown of how the NTC value is calculated
• The Secondary Market Returns GUI provides a notification if an earlier transfer made during the same delivery period could impact your return request
• Buy Now auction participants can choose to reveal or hide previous MTUs
• The Finance Billing Report contains additional data fields and filters
• An automatic reminder will notify appropriate users when the Letter of Credit is approaching its expiry date

With Empire 8.0, a new notification has been added to the GUI for Secondary Market return requests. If an earlier transfer made during the same delivery period could impact your return request, the Empire GUI will now alert you. However, you are still able to proceed to make the return if you would like to.

The Aggregated Nominations Overview now includes a detailed breakdown on how the NTC value is calculated. Both GUI and API users can access this, making it clearer than ever to view how your NTC values are calculated in Empire.

For Buy Now auction participants, Empire 8.0 includes a new feature to reveal or hide previous MTUs. By default, you’ll see all upcoming MTUs, but you can toggle your view using a new button in the top right of the GUI. Relevant MTUs are defined as those within the delivery day that are still active and may have capacity available. You can also choose in Preferences whether past (expired) MTUs are hidden by default when you open the Buy Now auction interface.

Following feedback from users, passwords and API keys now have separate requirements. API keys are now decoupled from password expiry and will expire after one year, with an initial reminder being sent 30 days before expiry and a final reminder sent 7 days before expiry. Password resets are now optional in the system for users.

Session times have also been extended, so you can stay logged in for longer, without needing to re-enter your credentials, making your workflow even smoother.

Empire 8.0 also introduces some enhancements to the Finance area of Empire.

New filters and data fields in the Finance Billing Report will provide easier access to invoice data. A new “Delivery Period” column has been added, displaying the delivery month and year (e.g. November 2025). Additionally, the “Invoice Generated Period” filter has been extended to allow selecting multiple months (up to three months).

New automatic reminders will also notify appropriate users when the Letter of Credit is approaching its expiry date. The notification email will be sent exactly 150 days before expiry and will be sent to the organisation’s main and finance email addresses.

We hope these updates will further enhance your experience of trading in Empire. These new features are available now in the Training environment, ahead of the release of Empire 8.0 in June.